Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

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With richly layered characters and a gripping moral dilemma that will lead readers to question everything they know about privilege, power, and race, Small Great Things is the stunning new page-turner from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult.
"[Picoult] offers a thought-provoking examination of racism in America today, both overt and subtle. Her many readers will find much to discuss in the pages of this topical, moving book." – Booklist (starred review)
Ruth Jefferson is a labor 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. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family – especially her teenage son – as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others – and themselves – might be wrong.
With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion – and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.
Praise for Small Great Things
"Small Great Things is the most important novel Jodi Picoult has ever written… It will challenge her readers… [and] expand our cultural conversation about race and prejudice." – The Washington Post
"A novel that puts its finger on the very pulse of the nation that we live in today… a fantastic read from beginning to end, as can always be expected from Picoult, this novel maintains a steady, page-turning pace that makes it hard for readers to put down." – San Francisco Book Review
"A gripping courtroom drama… Given the current political climate it is quite prescient and worthwhile… This is a writer who understands her characters inside and out." – Roxane Gay, The New York Times Book Review
"I couldn't put it down. Her best yet!" – New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman
"A compelling, can't-put-it-down drama with a trademark [Jodi] Picoult twist." – Good Housekeeping
"It's Jodi Picoult, the prime provider of literary soul food. This riveting drama is sure to be supremely satisfying and a bravely thought-provoking tale on the dangers of prejudice." – Redbook
"Jodi Picoult is never afraid to take on hot topics, and in Small Great Things, she tackles race and discrimination in a way that will grab hold of you and refuse to let you go… This page-turner is perfect for book clubs." – Popsugar
From the Hardcover edition.

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“You remember what I told you?”

“That my skin was brown because I had more melanin than anyone else in the school.”

“Right. Because everyone knows it’s better to have more of something than less . And melanin protects your skin from damage from the sun, and helps make your eyesight better, and Tommy Phipps would always be lacking. So actually, you were the lucky one.”

Slowly, like water on parched pavement, the smile evaporates from Edison’s face. “I don’t feel so lucky now,” he says.

AS LITTLE GIRLS, my older sister and I looked nothing alike. Rachel was the color of fresh-brewed coffee, just like Mama. Me, I was poured from the same pot, but with so much milk added, you couldn’t even taste the flavor anymore.

The fact that I was lighter got me privileges I didn’t understand, privileges that drove Rachel crazy. Tellers at banks gave me lollipops, and then, as an afterthought, offered one to my sister. Teachers called me the pretty Brooks sister, the good Brooks sister. During class portraits, I would be moved up to the front row; Rachel got hidden in the back.

Rachel told me that my real father was white. That I wasn’t really part of our family. Then, Rachel and I got into it one day and started yelling at each other and I said something about going to live with my real daddy. That night my mama sat me down and showed me pictures of my father, who was also Rachel’s father-a man with light brown skin like mine-holding me as a newborn. The date on the photo was a full year before he left all three of us for good.

Rachel and I grew up as different as two sisters could be. I’m short, and she’s tall as a queen. I was an avid student; she was naturally smarter than I was, but hated school. She embraced what she referred to as her “ethnic roots” in her twenties, legally changed her name to Adisa, and started wearing her hair in its natural kinky state. Although a lot of ethnic names are Swahili, Adisa comes from the Yoruba language, which she’ll tell you is West African-“where our ancestors actually came from when they were brought here as slaves.” It means, One who is clear. See, even her name judges the rest of us for not knowing the truths that she does.

Now, Adisa lives near the train tracks in New Haven in a neighborhood where drug deals go down in broad daylight and young men shoot at each other throughout the night; she has five kids, and she and the father of her children have minimum-wage jobs and barely scrape by. I love my sister to death, but I don’t understand the choices she’s made any more than she can understand mine.

I’ve wondered, you know. If my drive to become a nurse, to want more, to achieve more for Edison all came from the fact that even between two little Black sisters, I had a head start. I’ve wondered if the reason Rachel turned herself into Adisa was because feeding that fire inside herself was exactly what she needed to believe she had a chance to catch up.

ON FRIDAY, MY day off, I have an appointment at the nail salon with Adisa. We sit side by side, our hands under the UV drying vents. Adisa looks at the bottle of my chosen OPI nail color and shakes her head. “I can’t believe you picked a polish called Juice Bar Hopping,” she says. “That’s got to be the whitest color ever.”

“It’s orange,” I point out.

“I meant the name, Ruth, the name . You ever see a brotha in a juice bar? No. Because nobody goes to a bar to drink juice. Just like nobody asks for a sippy cup full of tequila.”

I roll my eyes. “Really? I just told you all about getting barred from a patient’s care and you want to talk about what color I’m putting on my nails?”

“I’m talking about what color you chose to live your life, girl,” Adisa says. “What happened to you happens to the rest of us every day. Every hour . You’re just so used to playing by their rules you forgot you got skin in the game.” She smirks. “Well. Lighter skin, but still.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugs. “When was the last time you told someone Mama still works as a domestic?”

“She hardly works now. You know that. She’s basically a charity Mina contributes to.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

I scowl. “I don’t know when I mentioned it last. Is that the first thing you bring up in conversation? Plus, it doesn’t matter what color I am. I’m good at my job. I didn’t deserve to be taken off that case.”

“And I don’t deserve to be living in Church Street South, but it’s going to take more than me to change two hundred years of history.”

My sister likes to play the victim. We’ve had some pretty heated exchanges about that before. If you don’t want to be seen as a stereotype, then the way I see it, don’t be one. But to my sister, that means playing a white man’s game, and being who they want her to be, instead of being unapologetically herself. Adisa says the word assimilation with so much venom that you’d think anyone who chooses it-like I did-is swallowing poison.

It’s also very like my sister to take a problem I have and turn it into her own rant.

“None of what happened at the hospital is your fault,” my sister says, surprising me. I figured she’d say I had this coming to me, because I’ve been pretending to be someone I’m not and somewhere along the pretending, I forgot the truth. “It’s their world, Ruth. We just live in it. It’s like if you up and moved to Japan. You could choose to ignore the customs and never learn the language, but you’re going to get along a lot easier if you do, right? Same thing here. Every time you turn on the TV or the radio you see and hear about white people going to high school and college, eating dinner, getting engaged, drinking their pinot noir. You learn how they live their lives, and you speak their language well enough to blend in with them. But how many white people you know who go out of their way to see Tyler Perry movies so they can learn how to act around Black people?”

“That’s not the point-”

“No, the point is you can do as the Romans do all you want, but it don’t mean the Emperor will let you into his palace.”

“White people do not run the world, Adisa,” I argue. “There are plenty of successful people of color.” I name the first three that pop into my head. “Colin Powell, Cory Booker, Beyoncé-”

“-and ain’t none of them dark, like me,” Adisa counters. “You know what they say: the deeper you go into the projects, the darker the skin.”

“Clarence Thomas,” I pronounce. “He’s darker than you and he’s on the Supreme Court.”

My sister laughs. “Ruth, he’s so conservative he probably bleeds white.”

My phone dings, and I carefully extract it from my purse so I don’t mess up my nails.

“Edison?” Adisa asks immediately. Say what you will about her, but she loves my son as much as I do.

“No. It’s Lucille from work.” Just seeing her name pop up on my phone makes my mouth go dry; she was the nurse during the delivery of Davis Bauer. But this isn’t about that family at all. Lucille’s got a stomach bug; she needs someone to fill in for her tonight. She’s willing to trade me, so that instead of working all day Saturday, I can leave at eleven. It means pulling a double shift, but I’m already thinking of what I could do with that time on Saturday. Edison needs a new winter coat this year-I swear he’s grown four inches over the summer. I could treat him to lunch, after shopping. Maybe there’s even a movie coming out that Edison and I could go see. It’s been hitting me hard lately-the realization that getting my son to a point where he’s accepted to college also means that I will be left alone. “They want me to come in to work tonight.”

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