#1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is a born storyteller who “writes with a fine touch, a sharp eye for detail, and a firm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of human relationships” (The Boston Globe). Small Great Things is Picoult at her finest–complete with unflinching insights, richly layered characters, and a page-turning plot with a gripping moral dilemma at its heart.
… dilemma at its heart.
Ruth Jefferson, a labor and delivery nurse, 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, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone on the ward. 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 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–especially for her teenaged son. And as the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others–and themselves–might be wrong.
From the Hardcover edition.
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An amazing novel about race relations, from overt white supremacy to hidden truths about raceism within us all.
This is the story of Ruth. Ruth is a 20 year veteran nurse who works at a small hospital on the labor and delivery ward. She loves her job and her patients. One day, she is taking care of a patient who is a white supremacist, and Ruth – is a black woman. The patient and her husband ask the nursing supervisor to remove Ruth from their baby’s care. A note is put in the baby’s chart that says “no African American care takers for this patient”. Ruth is the only black nurse on this floor, so it is clear who they mean.
During one of her shifts, the baby goes into distress after a routine circumcision while Ruth is the only nurse available in the nursery. She is torn on what she should do because she was told not to touch the baby. She does do CPR on the infant at the direction of her supervisor, but this results in Ruth being charged with a crime. In court, her lawyer tells Ruth that they cannot play the race card because they want to show that Ruth was just doing her job – that this wasn’t about the color of her skin.
This was a pretty good book. I enjoy Jodi’s books, and she usually pulls a huge twist in the end that I hate, but this time she didn’t. What I DIDN’T like about this book is the stereotypical black and white issues. She almost made them too extreme. I am sure that extreme exists – in fact I know it does – but I think Picoult took it a little too far. I found myself saying “really, you are going there?” several times. Especially when Ruth insisted on getting on the stand and basically explaining why this case was ALL about race.
So….I would read it. Honestly, it got 4500 good reviews on Amazon, and I can see why.
Enjoyed it especially since I was a nurse for 47 yrs and can relate to some of the issues. Very human story.
very thought provoking — great choice for a book club
This book is scary because it shows what racism left to blossom in the heart can become in any of us. Picoult does it again!
Causes the reader to think deeply.
A not to miss book about understanding pespectives.
I really enjoyed this book. Lots to talk about
Oh my goodness! This book was incredible. The story was poignant. In the times which we are living, the tale should be told & shouted off the rooftops. I couldn’t put the book down. The ending was heartwarming.
Jodi Picoult . The end.
I thought this was Jodi Picoult’s best work to date..In today’s climate of anger, racism, and intolerance it forces us to face much of what is prevalent in our thinking right or wrong. Very well done
I’ve long admired author Jodi Picoult for daring to delve into topics that don’t have any simple answers. In her twenty-fifth novel, Small Great Things, the theme is unconscious bias. Though this term is now in common use, I’m guessing that when Picoult first sat down to write this book (published in 2016), it was not. Which makes me wonder if this work of fiction has helped bring to light how the world really works.
The main character is Ruth, an experienced nurse who happens to be the only African-American working in labor and delivery at a small hospital in New Haven. When Ruth tries to examine a newborn, the white supremacist father requests that she not touch his son and complains to a supervisor; Ruth is reassigned. Then the baby goes into cardiac arrest, Ruth tries and fails to resuscitate him, and the father accuses Ruth of murder.
The public defender who takes Ruth’s case insists that mentioning race in the courtroom will only make the jury unsympathetic, so Ruth is forced to battle with her own conscience as well as a murder trial; is it worth going to jail, just to have her say about what it’s like to be a Black woman? (I capitalize Black intentionally, just as Picoult does—but only in the chapters told from Ruth’s perspective.)
I was already drawn into the story by the time I realized that Ruth would not be the only narrator. Just after Turk, the white supremacist dad, throws Ruth out of the delivery room (but before his son dies), we begin to see the world through his eyes. How much he loves his wife and son. How much he hates African-Americans (though he uses a very different word), and anyone else born without pure white Aryan blood. It is sickening to read, and yet Picoult manages to make Turk sympathetic, both by forcing us to walk in his shoes and by allowing him to change. (His ending, based on a real-life experience, is perhaps the most surprising of all.)
The third point of view is Kennedy, Ruth’s lawyer. She chose to become a public defender because she wants to help people; “I was never going to get rich, but I’d be able to look myself in the eye.” She can afford this choice because of her surgeon-husband’s salary and support; he tells her, “I’ll make the money, you make the difference.” But by the time we meet Kennedy (yes, she was named after JFK), she has realized that the system itself is a large part of the problem. As she gets to know Ruth, she also begins to see how much that system—fueled by both conscious and unconscious bias—has helped her go about her own life and raise her daughter without the endless, gut-punching fear that Ruth and her son take for granted as part of the everyday. Kennedy doesn’t pretend to find answers by book’s end, but she does learn to see herself in a very different light.
Somehow, the story is never without hope—even as each character acknowledges the insurmountable challenge of achieving racial equity. Not equality, Kennedy corrects Ruth:
“Equality is treating everyone the same. But equity is taking differences into account, so everyone has a chance to succeed.” I look at her. “The first one sounds fair. The second one is fair. It’s equal to give a printed test to two kids. But if one’s blind and one’s sighted, that’s not true. You ought to give one a Braille test and one a printed test, which both cover the same material.”
Since most of Picoult’s readership is white, I’m guessing most (like me) will find Kennedy’ point of view familiar. I also like to think that others (like me) will be able to “see” the world through the eyes of an African-American nurse and a white supremacist, because only through well-written, thoughtful fiction like this can we world-jump inside our heads to a place where we are the ones who look different.
I do have one quibble; the overuse of medical techno-jargon, especially in early chapters. Maybe Picoult and her editors thought they were showing Ruth’s experience and competence, but for those of us who have no idea what all those acronyms mean, they don’t establish credibility—all they do is distract from the story. This small complaint is definitely outweighed by such an excellent mix of entertainment and education; I will be thinking about this book for a long, long time. I recommend it to anyone who, like me, spends most of her days surrounded by people who look the same, because this book will make you realize that is a privilege rather than a right.
The title is taken from a quote that, as Picoult says in the excellent author’s note at the end, is “often attributed” to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” I’m taking this story as much-needed inspiration, to do a few small things in my world that will help everyone achieve their dreams.
PS: I didn’t realize until I sat down to write this review and looked at the cover in detail: it is a bunch of color chips. And “white” is missing.
Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. Her books always leave me thinking for days and weeks to come. This book did not disappoint!
Very thought provoking and left you with mixed emotions on either “side” of the subject matter.
This provoked a great discussion in book club.
Engrossing and thought provoking.
Beautiful story! One of the best books I’ve ever read in my 50+ years. Jodi Picoult
Important to read-especially for all of us who believe we have no racial or cultural prejudices. On top of that it was a well written and moving story.
Moving, unpredictable tale about racism and redemption and the challenges faced by RN’s in health care.
Just another awareness of how we see and think as the “white” race. We assume too much in terms of color, creed etc. None of us are white or brown we are people all doing our best or living out of our Woundedness Life is not always easy but sometimes we make it more difficult for one another to be!