Small Great Things: A Novel

by Jodi Picoult

A woman and her husband admitted to a hospital to have a baby requests that their nurse be reassigned -- they are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is black, to touch their baby. The hospital complies, but the baby later goes into cardiac distress when Ruth is on duty. She hesitates before rushing in to perform CPR. When her indecision ends in tragedy, Ruth finds herself on trial, represented by a white public defender who warns against bringing race into a courtroom. As the two come to develop a truer understanding of each other's lives, they begin to doubt the beliefs they each hold most dear.

• ISBN10: 1410463745
• ISBN13: 9781410463746
• Publish Date: 28 November 2016 (first published 11 October 2016)
• Publish Status: Withdrawn
• Out of Print: 26 September 2022
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Thorndike Press Large Print
• Edition: Large type / large print edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

I only made it through 20% through. No real page numbers on the electronic version from Netgalley.

I loved reading Jodi Picoult before as totally engrossing, new to me topics that are easy to read and connect with the characters. I haven’t read one in so long and was so excited that I just automatically requested it without looking at it.

I really should have.

Small Great Things starts with Ruth, giving her day-to-day as a labor and delivery nurse raising her son and why she picked this career.

Then there’s the “don’t touch my kid” scene with the Nazi couple.

After this, it starts including Turk’s perspective. I do not have the stomach for this sob backstory, how seductive the Nazi movement is, how society has failed these people.

I didn’t think it’d turn into this at all. I couldn’t continue reading it after Nazi Dad waxes poetic about the first kid he recruited and twisted into “his image.” How easy it was. How he planted materials and took advantage of them, like he was preyed upon.

I gave up and wrote this brief rundown of what I got through. Upon going back to Goodreads, I realized I didn’t even get to meet the other main player, the white woman lawyer.

Then I started reading other reviews from people. There’s very clear trends. The first page of community reviews is almost all white women praising the book for being bold, tackling a tough issue, and teaching them about what racism is like for black women.

Except this review by Tracey, a black woman, almost towards the bottom. It’s a generous two stars and is an absolute must read. It spurred me to keep digging.

1 and 2 star reviews fall into two categories:
-People who hate the “leftist” agenda and mad about the white people portrayal. (For the record: Fuck them.)
-People, especially black women, critiquing how problematic Small Great Things is and is another feel-good racism book for white women book clubs.

If you don’t care about spoilers, this review gives a great summary.

Here are some reviews from voices that need to read and listened to.

Tianna, a black nursing student, reviewed it with 1 star.

Janani Vaidya also gave it a 1 star:

Maybe you could learn to decenter yourself from these conversations for once. Instead, boost authors and writers from within the community to talk about those experiences, their history, their present- those voices will ring truer.

Max G’s 1 star review:

I actually find this book a bit offensive. I get what Jodi Picoult is trying to do here but this story is rife with offensive stereotypes - angry Black sister, long-serving servant mama, flamboyant pastor, sassy transgender prostitute. All the same tired tropes I could find literally anywhere else.

But even worse is the thread of respectability in Ruth's story. She's the classic palatable Black person; light skinned, educated, inoffensive, widow of a veteran, doesn't colour all white people with the same brush. Of course we should feel sorry for her! Of course she's being wrongly persecuted!

The problem is that what happened would be just as wrong if Ruth were a crackhead with a criminal record. That should be the point - that racism is real and it's wrong, period. No matter whom it's happening to.

But in trying to tell a story that would be relatable to her "mainstream" audience, she does the cause a huge disservice. Huge.

I read that she wrote this because it's a story that needed to be told. I agree, but I'm not sure she's the one who should be telling it. If she really wanted to support an oppressed community she should have put her considerable influence behind a writer of colour - God knows there are enough of them - who could have told this story with the complexity and nuance that she missed.

Erhodesi’s 1 star review nails it succinctly:

I can't think of a book that has made me as angry and sad as this book. While Picoult feels that she is doing her bit to fight racism, she is doing a disservice to her readers. The middle class white woman demographic this book is written for, will pat themselves on the backs that they now get it. But Picoult's privilege is showing in every turn of this book. It's in the framing and selection of the main character. It's in the sympathetic skinhead. And most painfully, it is showing on the neat bow she wraps around her ending. The chracters are stereotypes. The twist is predictable. Because of this, the social and moral issue of racism is addressed in a way that feels exploitave of people impacted by racism everyday.

And it goes on and on and on. If you can stomach it, the reviews are good reading. A far better use of time than reading Small Great Things.

[Leah]

Jodi Picoult is by far one of the best storytellers of this generation – perhaps of any generation. She’s unafraid to write about the hard topics in life, and I learn more from reading her books than I ever did at school, and I am always amazed at her ability to write such amazing, outstanding, thought-provoking novels time after time. It’s actually been an age since her last book, or so it seems, so Small Great Things has been a book I’ve been waiting for, and been incredibly excited about. It’s also the kind of novel I could never do justice to in my review. I say that a lot, because with books like Small Great Things, you never know what to say, how to get across how much a book impacts you, and this book makes an impact.

First off, let me tell you, much like Kennedy, I don’t think in terms of skin colour. But, as Ruth points out, because I am white, that’s still not exactly a helpful thing to think, or say, because I’ve never stood in Ruth’s shoes. Or any of the coloured people who have wrong-doings thrust upon them, because of the colour of their skin, and I will never know what that’s like, but to see Ruth’s perspective really opened my eyes. I knew about Trayvon Martin, of course, everyone has heard the name Trayvon Martin, and it’s an absolute tragedy, but to actually see Ruth’s point of view, to see her going to trial over the death of Davis, although it was fictional, it really made an impact, and opened my eyes to how being a person of colour is in day-to-day life. Simply going to the supermarket is subject to scrutiny, and that does make me sad.

What surprised me most was Turk and Brittany. I honestly have never heard of anyone being a white supremacist, and that’s just incredibly scary, how they act, how they feel, the things they do, that horrified me. I did not even know that was a thing, and while there were times I felt for Turk, mostly I was just revolted, because who acts like that? He seemed to be missing his compassionate gene, and his points of view just made me sad and angry, and wanted to get away from him and his voice as soon as possible, because he started this, it was all because of his beliefs that this all happened, and it just blew my mind, because who cares what colour your nurse is, as long as they provide the best care?

I really liked Kennedy, Ruth and Edison, though. The whole story was truly mind-blowing. No words can really do this book justice, Jodi Picoult is on tip-top form (as if I expected anything less, she is the queen of fiction). Small Great Things will stay with me way, way longer than any other book I’ve read this year, and I will re-read this book when I get my filthy hands on a hardback copy, come November. This is an astounding, powerful novel, and bravo Jodi for tackling it, she did it amazingly well, and this book will stick with me for a long time. A long, long time.