Jodi Picoult, who is one of The Bestseller Code 100 challenge authors, did an online interview on Facebook this week promoting her latest, Small Great Things (Amazon affiliate link).
Did you catch the interview? If not, I figured out how to embed it here. The interview is about 45 minutes long, but well worth the time. Note: It takes a minute or so for the interview to start.
Summary:
The novel is about a nurse named Ruth who is told she shouldn’t touch one of the babies in her care because the baby’s parents are white supremacists and they requested no African Americans care for their child. What does she do when an emergency comes up and she is alone with the baby?
Discussion:
Picoult says it took her twenty-five years to find a way to write about racism in America. She went to a racial justice workshop, interviewed a number of African Americans about their lives, and also spoke to a former white supremacist. Because she writes from three points of view; as Ruth the African American nurse, as the white supremacist father, and as the white lawyer who defends Ruth, Jodi had to create three different voices. The author says that after writing as the supremacist, she felt the need to take a shower.
During the interview, she also discusses some of her other books and the process of writing. I smiled when she disclosed her daughter protested because she found out her mother had used one of their conversations in the book.
If you watched the interview, what did you think?
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books (October 11, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0345544951
ISBN-13: 978-0345544957
