JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

Small Great Things
Jodi Picoult
October 2016
Allen & Unwin

Small Great Things is the latest page-turner from Jodi Picoult and explores racism in the United States. Ruth Jefferson is a labour and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African-American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Ruth hesitates before performing CPR, the baby dies, and then Ruth is charged with negligent homicide.

Jodi Picoult has written another courtroom drama with a heart-wrenching plot. She tackles racism, prejudice and justice with incredible prose and it really feels timely that this book was published around the time of the 2016 Presidential Election.

The book explores racial prejudice through three perspectives: Ruth, the black nurse charged with the murder of the baby; Kennedy McQuarrie, Ruth’s white public defender who doesn’t consider herself to be racist but does unknowingly harbour racial biases; and Turk, the white supremacist whose son Davis died unexpectedly.

Small Great Things is told from these three different points of view and together, they all offer different angles on the events. Jodi has crafted this novel with depth and insight and an incredible amount of research. The book is rich with relationships, family and societal relations.

At no point was I bored when reading Small Great Things. Jodi’s books are always lengthy, but I always read them at incredible speed, desperate to get to the end and find out how the story will conclude. Jodi really has perfected her formula. She always alternates between point of view in order to give different opinions on whichever matter she is exploring (in this case, racism), and morality and tough choices usually play a significant part in the novels she writes. Additionally, her novels always have a suspenseful plot, three-dimensional characters and a brisk rhythm.

Kennedy – over the course of the novel – must come to terms with her white privilege. She realises, for the first time, that she does have racial biases and she acknowledges the pervasiveness of American racism. Turk, who is a loving father and husband but horrendously racist, forms one of the strongest elements of the book. Jodi has captured his beliefs and attitudes so well and he really jumps off the page. You don’t hate him as much as you hate his wife, who is the true racist of the book, but he is loathsome. And yet, Jodi has illustrated him in a way that we at times sympathise for him. He has lost his son and he is losing his wife. With flashbacks and reminiscient paragraphs, we learn his past – how he met and fell in love with Brit and the path that brought him to hate.

“I was writing to my own community…who can very easily point to a neo-Nazi skinhead and say he’s a racist… but who can’t recognise racism in themselves.”
-Jodi Picoult in her author’s note

In the author note at the end of book, Jodi acknowledges that she’s always wanted to write a book about racism in America but never felt like it was her story to tell. She did a lot of research prior to starting this novel, talking to a range of people including women of colour and skinheads. Jodi has taken her research and created yet another amazing novel – it may even be her best novel to date.

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier

At the Edge of the Orchard
Tracy Chevalier
March 2016
HarperCollins Publishers
Adult Fiction

At the Edge of the Orchard is a 2016 literary fiction novel by Tracy Chevalier, the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring.

This novel is dark, powerful and moving, and alternates setting between Ohio in 1838 and 1853 California. In 1838, James and Sadie Goodenough have settled into the Black Swamp, planting apple trees to claim the land as their own. Life is harsh in the swamp, and as fever picks off their children, husband and wife take solace in separate comforts. James patiently grows his sweet-tasting ‘eaters’ while Sadie gets drunk on applejack made fresh from ‘spitters’, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life. Their fighting takes its toll on all of the Goodenoughs.

In 1853, James and Sadie’s youngest son, Robert, is drifting through Gold Rush California and haunted by the broken family he fled from years earlier. Memories flood the book and slowly, the reader finds out how the 1838 storyline progressed and the effect it had on Robert, who was quite young at the time.

“Robert had tried to lead an honest life, even when surrounded by dishonest people, but no matter how cleanly he lived now, he had made one mistake that he could never escape.”

This book reads like a riveting television drama, filled with fierce characters and troubling financial troubles and the sense that disaster is about the strike. Ohio’s Black Swamp is inhospitable to humans, animals, crops and trees alike, and the Goodenough family have been struggling for years to grow enough apple trees to claim their land and remain financially stable.

At the Edge of the Orchard explores poverty, illness and family hostility. James and Sadie are an unlikely couple who don’t seem to share common interests, respect or compassion. They’re brutal to each other, both mentally and physically, and it takes its toll on their eldest son Robert. The novel alternates between narrative perspectives to give the reader an encompassing sense of the storyline – we get all the facts so that even though Robert may not understand all of the history, the reader does.

We are subjected to alternating narrative perspectives for the course of two decades, which allows us to fill in the details bit by bit until we understand why Robert left his family behind and went running westwards. He finds employment with an English seed agent named William Lobb, but it’s clear throughout the novel that he’s a passive character. He is not active with his choices, and things happen to him not from his own actions but from the actions of those around him. He falls in and out of jobs and relationships quite easily and he doesn’t seem to have strong emotions to suggest he opposes any of the changes in his life.

At the Edge of the Orchard is a slow-moving literary novel that I’d recommend to readers who love a character-driven novel. It’s a slow-burner, and information is revealed intermittently and quite subtly. This book explores what happens when humans interfere with nature; it also delves into family and relationships, and although the first third of the novel drags a little and doesn’t seem to hit the mark, the rest of the novel is quite entertaining and is worth the finish.

Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

Harmless Like You
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
September 2016
Hachette Publishers
Literary Fiction

Harmless Like You is a dual POV literary fiction novel by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan. We’re introduced to Japanese-American Yuki in 1968 when she is 16 years old and has not one friend in New York City. Her parents have moved back to Tokyo and she decides to stay and live with her friend, aspiring model Odile. The book alternates to the year 2016, where gallery owner Jay – whose father has recently died – is accepting his role as a new father. He believes that he is a happily married man, but it’s the year that he will finally confront his mother Yuki, who abandoned their family when he was two years old.

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan explores the blurred boundary between love and pain, selfishness and sacrifice. This novel highlights that the meaning of ‘home’ is complicated and that by starving for a sense of connection, our main character Yuki has actually detached herself from her roots. She’s strayed so far from what she envisioned herself being, that the sacrifices she made almost seem to have been made without real intention to do so. Yuki does not seem to be in control of herself, and she does not seem able to climb out of the painful hole that she finds herself in when she enters an abusive relationship. She is also a deeply lonely character who strives for artistic fulfilment.

“He deposited the bag on the table. Silently, he bent, picking up pages, stacking them, smoothing the edges of the manuscript. He came right to her, still silent, and eased the last sheet from between her fingers, tapped the pile three times, and dropped it back in the drawer. The drawer clattered as he punched it shut. He crouched, eyes level with Yuki’s. He hit her – not hard, but she was unprepared. She fell, landing on the point of her elbow. Her limbs went loose. She slid across the floor. His nail had caught her lip and she tasted blood. Out the window, she saw aeroplane trails. And she didn’t move. She lay and watched them decay.”

Harmless Like You explores the notion that children can inherit identity from their parents. Pain travels through the generations in this novel. Jay, having been abandoned by his mother when he was two years old, is finding fatherhood travelling and his marriage even more so. He loves his wife, but he is not attentive or present, much like his mother Yuki.

“I think the real cowards are the ones over there killing harmless little girls like you”

This novel is unflinchingly honest and captures some of the ugliest aspects of life that a person can experience. Harmless Like You highlights the messier side of life – both Yuki and Jay struggle with fidelity, and at one point, Jay wonders if he loves his child at all. He wonders what it would be like if he just dropped her.

Both characters are looking for fulfilment in life, and this resulted in Yuki abandoning her child. It seems like Jay is thinking the same thing. By delving into Yuki’s past, we come to understand her as a character and the need she has for artistic fulfilment, and how that trumps her being a parent to Jay. The separate stories from her life allow the reader to see why she left her husband and son and why she never came back.

Harmless Like You is an elegant and moving novel that explores the difficulty of life, love and family. It’s extremely well-written and beautifully eloquent and Rowan leaves more unsaid that said. The reader comes to understand the complicated relationships between parents and children, and how actions can cause unintended consequences.

The Easy Way Out by Steven Amsterdam

The Easy Way Out is a poignant, moving novel about a legal suicide assistant named Evan who is tasked with handing out cups of Nembutal to patients wishing to end their life. Steven Amsterdam has crafted a novel that fictionalises euthanasia and forces readers to ask questions that prove quite difficult to answer: if you could help someone in pain, would you? Would you help someone end their life?

Steven’s latest novel explores a world where euthanasia is accessible for those who have need for it, thanks to the development of ‘Measure 961’. Evan’s job is legal, but he keeps it a secret from his friends. He is closely monitored by hospital authorities. His actions are filmed, and when he hands his patients the cup of Nembutal, there can be no hint of coercion and no evidence of emotion in his face. He is not allowed to intervene in the process.

But over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that emotional detachment is impossible when you’re in this line of work.

Evan seems in over his head, and he struggles to hide his compassion and care for the people he meets. Sometimes, Evan is the last person to be with them before their life is ended. Evan questions his own morality and the intentions of those closest to him, and he realises that the path he’s on might not be what he wants.

Evan is someone who keeps secrets. His friends don’t know about his job, and he keeps his personal life private from his ageing mother Viv, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease. As Evan’s mother is coming closer and closer to the end of her life, Evan’s home life starts to parallel his work. He starts to consider the cost of his role, and whether he’s really happy with his role at the hospital. The Easy Way Out is a multi-layered novel centred around Evan’s role as a suicide assistant, but it is also centred around his relationship with his mother.

Steven Amsterdam’s characters are compelling, brilliantly-developed and realistic. Evan is in a relationship with Lon and his partner Simon, but he keeps this private from his mother. And his relationship with his mother is frayed and strained.

At times the story felt slow, with not enough plot happening to propel the reader forward. I found my reading pace slowing, waiting for some kind of focused direction. This was a reflective novel that is designed to encourage discussion and questions, but at times it did seem to lag and tire the reader.

The Easy Way Out is a thought-provoking novel that readers have to be mentally prepared to tackle. Steven has crafted an enjoyable read that I’d definitely recommend to others.

Eleanor by Jason Gurley

Jason Gurley’s Eleanor is a literary fantasy novel that follows the lives of identical twins Eleanor and Esmeralda, whose lives are affected not only by misery, tragedy and unlikely circumstances, but they are moulded by otherworldly, fantastical events.

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that Eleanor is classed as a fantasy novel. At first I was deterred and didn’t know what to expect. But Jason Gurley has constructed wonderful prose and a lot of this novel is set in a contemporary, American town.

The novel travels across a few different time periods so that the reader can understand numerous tragedies that befell the Witt family. At the beginning of the book, we’re introduced to a young five year old girl called Eleanor, who’s mother enters the ocean for an evening swim and does not resurface. But the novel is not about this Eleanor, but her granddaughter, also named Eleanor.

Years later, in 1985, the granddaughter Eleanor is in a car accident alongside her mother Agnes and her twin sister Esmerelda. Her twin sister is unfortunately killed, and over the next eight years, Agnes’ guilt, resentment and shame drives her to become a withdrawn, alcoholic mother who blames Eleanor for the death of Esmerelda.

What begins as a beautiful, heartbreaking coming-of-age novel about Eleanor taking care of her sick mother and trying desperately to still live a normal life soon becomes quite a different novel. Eleanor’s life is disrupted when she starts disappearing in front of her family and friends, losing time as she is transported to another world. In this other world, Eleanor meets Mea, who lives in a fish bowl where she can see all of time and space. The reader is also introduced to The Keeper, a woman who holds omnipotent power over a grey forest and resents Eleanor for invading her domain.

At first, Eleanor’s disappearance and transportation to these other worlds seems to be conceived by an unrestrained imagination. But as the reader delves further into the book and the complex make up of the family timeline, we realise that Eleanor really is being transported to a ‘limbo’ world in which her sister Esmerelda ended up when she was killed in the car accident eight years earlier.

Jason Gurley has crafted a dysfunctional family with smooth, easy to read prose. Eleanor’s family is fractured over the eight years since Esmerelda’s death, and when Eleanor is unknowingly transported out of her contemporary, ordinary world into the strange and dreamlike world that her sister now inhabits, she is confused and doesn’t know what is happening to her. She is injured quite significantly every time she is transported back to her world, and so much time has passed that she finds it extremely difficult to explain her absences.

Despite being a beautifully written, well-rounded novel, the alternate timelines and the interchange between worlds forms a disjointed narrative. The reader is left confused at times, uncertain about the hidden meaning or significance of certain plot points. Some sections of the novel, particularly the chapters following The Keeper, seem undeveloped and the constant interchange between worlds jolts the reader and disinterests them. The story did feel like it dragged on a little bit, and I found myself wishing it would end about 100 pages before it actually did.

Eleanor is a novel that plays with time, and it explores grief, circumstance, consequences and family. It is certainly an intriguing, daring novel with both literary elements and fantasy fiction tropes. The characters are engaging, dimensional and raw – I’d recommend Eleanor to fantasy readers and also literary fiction readers who aren’t deterred by the fantastical elements woven throughout.