-Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have read several books by this author, and I can truly say Ms. Picoult does not shy away from social issues, even provocative ones. Neither is she reluctant to take on tons of research to make her novels believable and accurate. She has tackled such topics as a school shooting, the Holocaust, abortion and transgenderism. In Small Great Things, she addresses systemic racism in a compelling story reminiscent of a Grisham legal thriller.
The main character is a black labor and delivery nurse named Ruth Jefferson who faces a dire legal challenge. Much of the story is told by Ruth and other parts are narrated by her white female public defender, Kennedy McQuarrie, and a white supremacist, Turk Bauer, who is the originator of Ruth's woes.
With a gripping plot, more medical details than I could understand and disturbing scenes of hatefulness, both verbal and physical, the novel was a true page-turner. There is absolutely no humor and in her author's note, Ms. Picoult says she did not write it for fun but because it was the right thing to do. The chapters are longer than I prefer but I must rate the novel a 5. I believe it improved my insight into the Black experience, so it was the right thing to read even though it was not fun.
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