Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

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Small Great Things: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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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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I reach for the emesis basin and pass it to Virginia.

“Let’s see if we can examine you before that happens,” I suggest, and I slip on a pair of latex gloves, pulling up the sheet at the end of the bed.

Mrs. Braunstein turns to Virginia. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Um.” She turns to me. “Yes?”

I lower the sheet. “Mrs. Braunstein,” I say. “Virginia’s a nursing student . I’ve been in this business for twenty years. If you want, I’m sure she’d be delighted to add to her education by seeing how many centimeters you’re dilated. But if you’re in any sort of discomfort and just want to get that part of this over with, I’d be happy to accommodate you.”

“Oh!” The patient turns bright red. “I just assumed…”

That she is in charge. Because even though Virginia is ten years younger than me, she is white.

I exhale, the same way I tell my imminent mothers to exhale, and-like them-with that breath, I let the frustration go. I put a gentle hand on Mrs. Braunstein’s knee, and offer her a professional smile. “Let’s just get this baby out,” I suggest.

MY MAMA STILL works for Mina Hallowell in her Upper West Side brownstone. Ever since Mr. Sam passed, it’s Ms. Mina that my mom is supposed to be helping. Her daughter, Christina, lives nearby, but has her own life. Her son, Louis, lives in London with his husband, a director in the West End. Apparently I’m the only person who finds it ironic that Mama is three years older than the woman she’s supposed to be assisting. Every time I’ve talked to my mama about retiring, though, she shrugs me off and says the Hallowells need her. I’d venture that my mama needs the Hallowells just as much, if only to feel like she still has a purpose.

My mother only has off on Sundays, and since I usually am asleep that day after a long Saturday-night shift, when I visit her it has to be at the brownstone instead. I don’t visit very often, though. I tell myself it’s because I have work or Edison or a thousand other reasons that take precedence, but in reality, it’s because a little piece of me dies every time I walk inside and see my mama in that shapeless blue uniform, with a white apron wrapped around her hips. You’d think that after all this time, Ms. Mina would just tell Mama to dress the way she likes, but no. Maybe this is the reason why, when I do visit, I make a point of using the front entrance, with the doorman, instead of the servants’ elevator in the back of the building. There is just some perverse part of me that likes knowing I will be announced like any other guest. That the name of the maid’s daughter will be written down in a log.

Today when my mother lets me inside, she gives me a big hug. “Ruth! If this isn’t the best surprise! I just knew today was going to be a good one.”

“Really?” I say. “Why?”

“Well, I put on my heavy coat because the weather’s turning, and wouldn’t you know I found a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket left behind from last fall when I wore it. And I said to myself, Lou, this is either a good omen, or else it’s the start of Alzheimer’s .” She grins. “I chose the former.”

I love the way her wrinkles have weathered her smile. I love seeing how age will look on my face, one day.

“Is my grandbaby here too?” she asks, looking behind me in the hall. “Did you bring him for another one of those college visits?”

“No, Mama, he’s in classes now. You’re gonna have to make do with just me.”

Just you,” she teases. “As if that was never enough.” She closes the door behind her as I unbutton my coat. She holds out her hand for it, but I reach into the closet instead for a hanger. The last thing I’m going to do is make my mama wait on me, too. I put my coat next to hers, and just for old times’ sake, run my hand down the soft underbelly of Mama’s lucky scarf before closing the closet door.

“Where’s Ms. Mina?” I ask.

“Shopping, downtown, with Christina and the baby,” she says.

“I don’t want to interrupt you if you’re busy -”

“For you, baby, I always have time. Come into the dining room. I’m just doing a little cleaning.” She starts down the hallway, and I follow, carefully noticing the way she’s favoring her right knee because of the bursitis in her left.

On the dining room table a white sheet is spread, and the strings of crystal that form the massive chandelier overhead are laying on it like trails of tears. A pungent bowl of ammonia solution sits in the center. My mother sits down and resumes her task of dipping each strand, then letting it air dry.

“How did you get those down?” I ask, eyeing the chandelier.

“Carefully,” my mama replies.

I think about her balancing on the table, or a chair. “It’s too dangerous for you to do that kind of stuff anymore-”

She waves me away. “I been doing this for fifty years,” my mama says. “I could clean crystal in a coma.”

“Well, keep climbing up to get them down from the chandelier and you might get your wish.” I frown. “Did you go to the orthopedist whose name I gave you?”

“Ruth, stop babying me.” She starts to fill in the space between us by asking about Edison’s grades. She says that Adisa is worried about her sixteen-year-old dropping out of high school (something she failed to mention to me at the nail salon). As we talk, I help lift strands of crystal and dip them into the ammonia solution, feeling the liquid burn my skin, and pride-even more bitter-burn the back of my throat.

When my sister and I were little, Mama used to bring us here on Saturdays to work. She framed this as a big deal, a privilege- not all kids are well behaved enough to shadow a parent at a job! If you’re good, you get to push the button on the dumbwaiter that brings the dishes up from the dining room to the kitchen! But what started as a treat soured quickly for me. True, sometimes we got to play with Christina and her Barbies, but when she had a friend over, Rachel and I were evicted to the kitchen or the laundry room, where Mama showed us how to iron cuffs and collars. At ten, I finally rebelled. “Maybe you’re okay with this, but I don’t want to be Ms. Mina’s slave,” I told my mother, loud enough to maybe be overheard, and she slapped me. “You do not use that word to describe an honest, paying job,” my mama corrected. “The same job that put that sweater on your back and those shoes on your feet.”

What I didn’t realize at the time was that our apprenticeship had a higher purpose. We were learning the whole time-how to make hospital corners on a bed, how to get stains out of the grout, how to make a roux. My mama had been teaching us to be self-sufficient, so that we’d never be in the position Ms. Mina was in, unable to do things for ourselves.

We finish cleaning the crystal drops, and I stand on a chair while my mama hands them to me one by one to hang from the chandelier again. They are blinding in their beauty. “So,” Mama says when we are nearly finished, “are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to pry it loose?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I was just missing you, that’s all.”

It’s true. I came to Manhattan because I wanted to see her. I wanted to go somewhere where I knew I’d be valued.

“What happened at work, Ruth?”

When I was a child my mother’s intuition was so uncanny it took me many years to realize she wasn’t psychic. She didn’t know the future; she just knew me.

“Usually you can’t stop talking about a set of triplets or a father-in-law who punched out a new daddy in the waiting room. Today, you haven’t mentioned the hospital at all.”

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