Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper, which I loved Thursday afternoon, had by 2 AM Friday turned into a total bore. But I'll start with the positive. It's the story of a 13-year-old who, conceived and born to be spare parts for her older sister with leukemia, sues her parents for medical emancipation. Great story, IMHO. Well drawn and complex characters. Interesting moral dilemmas. Occasionally clever dialogue. A real pager-turner. Examples:
1) Jesse, Kate's younger and Anna's older brother is asked what his favorite number is. "Nine. Because it can be a number, or how old you are, or a six standing on its head." (page 121) Well, I thought it was clever. But we know I'm easily amused.
2) "Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they (sic) tell you, it's (sic) not because they (sic) enjoy solitude. It's (sic) because they (sic) have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them(sic)." (page 189) Interesting thought. I'm not sure I agree with it, and I wouldn't give the sentence's construction more than a D. But it's still interesting.
3) Structurally the book is first person, various characters narrating various chapters. Of all of them I found Sara, the mother, to be the most interesting. Never did I fail to respond emotionally to her. At one point she is being forced to give Anna, the spare parts daughter, a shot so she can donate bone marrow to Kate, her sister with leukemia. The shot hurts. The mother writes, "I wonder if it hurts as much as having your six-year-old stare you in the eye and say she hates you." (page 272) I react: Just what you deserve, you bitch!
4) But on the next page I experience a wave of sympathy. Sara is lambasting a spokesman for the insurance company that's refusing to pay for a kidney transplant. "This time I'm expecting the click when I'm disconnected." (page 273)
5) About the oncology ward: "The doctors breeze in and out like conquering heroes, but they need to read your child's chart to remember where they left off from the previous visit, but it is the nurses … who are there when your baby is shaking with such a high fever she needs to be bathed in ice, the ones who can teach you how to flush a central venous catheter, or suggest which patient floor kitchens might have Popsicles to be stolen, or tell you which dry cleaners know how to remove the stains of blood and chemotherapy from clothing" (page 277) Essentially true in all the hospital wards I've been on.
6) Sara and her husband are in a restaurant. She writes, " notice that chatter happens mostly at tables where the diners are young and hip. The other couples, the ones sporting wedding bands that wink with their silverware, eat without the pepper of conversation. Is it because they are so comfortable, they already know what the other is thinking? Or is it because after a certain point, there is simply nothing left to say?" (page 284) I remember the first time my husband and I ate in silence at a restaurant. It was sad. But sadder still is the occasional realization when I'm listening to someone, that I'd rather be reading a book. Or being silent with my husband.
7) Wonderful moment: Anna, Kate and Sara are in Kate's hospital room working a crossword puzzle. A clue is a four-letter word for vessel. Sara comes up with ship. Kate falls asleep. Anna and Sara argue about Anna's lawsuit, her refusal to donate a kidney. On the way out of the room, Anna says, "Anna." Sara asks what she means. Anna explains, "A four-letter word for vessel." (page 302) I understood what Anna was saying after a second reading, and now I'm angry at the writer, wondering how a writer clever enough to come up with that scene and dialogue could come up with some of the crap that ends this book.
So let's talk about some of that crap. Up until, say, page 400 I was reading a book about a family with a genuinely engrossing problem. But there's also a subplot about a past—and ultimately present—relationship between the lawyer Anna hires and the woman the court appoints to protect Anna's rights. The last hundred pages explain that relationship, resolve it and use all elements in the story to point out that "honesty is the best policy." Oh, yuck!
If [i]My Sister's Keeper had been solely about the ramifications of the parents' decision to produce and use a child for spare parts, I'd be a Picoult fan, busy searching out more of her books to read. But it wasn't, and I am therefore not!
