Having recently read an advanced readers’ copy of Jodi Picoult’s By Any Other Name (due out August 20, 2024), I was interested enough to start picking up some of her back list, this time Small Great Things. This book in particular attracted me for two reasons: I am a physician and the medical aspects intrigued me, and because I raised a Black child, the racial aspects also incited my curiosity.
Ruth Jefferson, a Black labor and delivery nurse with more than twenty years’ experience, performs a screening exam on a newborn. The father, a White supremacist complete with swastika tattoos, asks the nursing supervisor to ban all people of color from handling his child. Of course, Ruth is the only POC in the department. After a routine vasectomy, the baby unexpectedly starts tanking in the nursery. Ruth, due to understaffing, has been left to monitor the child—but is not to touch him. When the baby’s heart stops, her personal Catch-22—should she resuscitate him or not?—gets her charged with murder. From here, the book explores racism, prejudice, and privilege as seen by both Blacks and Whites as Ruth’s trial proceeds. Ruth feels that Kennedy McQuarrie, because she doesn’t want to play the “race card” during the trial, doesn’t really see the problem. Kennedy must undergo some significant internal struggles before she finally gets the picture.
Small Great Things is told from three points of view: Ruth, Kennedy, and Turk (the White supremacist). Picoult does a good job of capturing Turk’s hatred. All three characters undergo a very satisfying character arc. The situation is based on real happenings. Though people feel things have changed since the Jim Crow era, much still remains the same. This is an extremely well-written, highly thought-provoking read. Kudos to Picoult for taking on such a difficult topic and showing all points of view, however ugly and brutal they might be, while showing the unrelenting damage centuries of racism has done to Black psyches.
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Great Small Things (Ballantine Books, October 11, 2016) is available through:
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