Small Great Things: A Book for Controversial Conversation

Small Great Things.  Jodi Picoult. 470 Pages. 2016

Alright lets do it...lets delve into these issues that are infiltrating our world right now.  Black lives matter, All lives matter, Blue lives matter, the Millennial generation, discrimination, women's rights movements, republican, democrat, right, wrong...it has my head spinning! 

 This was chosen as a THE book for our book club this month.   What better time to have a group of women with different views come together to battle it out to make sure our opinions are understood and heard...because of course the way we think must be the right way.  Cue to eye rolls, heavy breaths, defensive statements, hair pulling and smashed wine bottles.  No I'm kidding...we will all sit down and calmly express and discuss our feelings about these topics as we drink bottles of wine.   <Stay tuned...the meeting hasn't happened yet.  So I cannot report if any friendships have been tainted or lost>  But since I haven't met with my BCB (book club bitches) yet, Im going to share my thoughts with you first.

I had briefly heard the backstory of what this novel was about:   An African American delivery nurse (Ruth), a white supremacist couple who demands that no colored nurses should tend to their newborn, and a baby who left under Ruth's care ultimatly dies when she struggles with caring for the baby or following her supervisors instructions to stay away from the newborn  .  A trial takes place which further delves into the racism undertones that are affecting our country today. 

What I loved most about this book was how the story was told from so many different point of views.  You have the two colored sisters:  Ruth, who graduated from Yale, became a delivery nurse, moved to the "right side of town", and worked hard to make sure her son had a better life.  And her sister, Rachel (who changes her name to Adisa) who collects welfare, never really leaves the neighborhood, and believes that people of color should not have to conform to what "white people" consider their norm.  Then you have the white supremacist husband, Turk, who believes that all black people are of a lesser existence, has a swastika tattoo on his head, beats gays for the fun of it, and refuses to believe that any other race besides caucasians should be considered equal let alone respected.  Lastly there is Kennedy, a caucasian defense lawyer who defends Ruth in her trial, who believes that race cannot be brought into the courtroom and should be ignored, and that addressing race will only lead to defeat.  

This book makes you see things from a handful of different perspectives.  Sometimes it is so easy to go on with our day to day lives and not think about what other people are going through, or what they have to deal with.  Most of the time I'm concerned with whats for dinner and is my dog dragging our couch pillows outside through the doggie door when we aren't home.  I can definitely say that I have not had to deal with a majority of the hardships that were brought up in this book, and many times throughout my life have probably been unaware of what others are going through.  

When people who are white say "I see you as white...or I don't see color" never seemed to be such a big deal to me.  I always thought saying..."I see you as white" meant I see you as my equal, or I see you the same as me.  But what if someone who was African American said to me "I see you as black".  Now that would be an interesting concept.  

What I have realized while reading this book is...maybe all people need for you to say is...I see you for who you are, I respect who you are, and I will treat you as my equal.  

At one point in the book Adisa confronts Ruth, saying that she goes to work, and drinks her pinot noir and tries to act "like them [white] " so that she can fit in and be who they think she should be.  Which raises the question...Why is "acting white" the right way to be?  Now considering my choice of wine is Pinot Noir and I am white... I thought this analogy was very fitting.  But it brings up the point that why is what I do the right thing or the acceptable thing to do?  

I won't reveal what happens in the end, because I don't want to have any spoiler alerts, but there are some interesting twists and turns towards the end of the book.  Some left me feeling that the characters were foolish and stupid for doing certain things, while my empathetic side of my gemini brain was weighing out the bigger meaning of their actions.

Some people will love this book, and others will hate this book.  Some people will embrace it, while others will think that it paints caucasians in a negative light where they are ultimately racist even if they do not think they are.

So at the end of the day, if you are looking for a book to provoke debate, thought, and discussion try this one out.  

<3 P.S.   I will let you know how the book club turns out.  If we can walk away with the same number of participants as we started with then props to us for being mature enough to share our thoughts with one another.