Review of Nineteen Minutes

I just finished Jodi Piccoult’s latest and thought, “Finally!”  I have avoided reading this novel because I’m a high school teacher and school shootings are always in the backdrop — not only because of recurring tragic events in the news, but because of relentess — yet necessary? — safety drills.  Students in my school have become very, very good at transitioning seamlessly from grammar to “lock down” back to grammar, not even noticing as I pull down the window shades, lock the door, and turn off the lights.  They simply continue to write notes from the overhead projector or pick up the discussion after the intercom interruption.  In September, the 9th graders are initially a little “wide-eyed” but soon accept the drills as a necessary part of life in high school.

So, with these constant reminders, I had avoided Picoult’s latest.  However, since I'm on leave to create www.bookclubclassics.com and have this distance from the classroom cloaking my life, I decided to give it a try.  I have read a handful of Picoult’s novels — I spend enough time in airports to appreciate the consuming, page-turning quality of her writing.  But recently, when a former colleague (at book club) learned what I was reading and responded, “Picoult — isn’t she a great writer?!” I hesitated.  Engaging — yes.  Thought-provoking — yes.  Popular — extremely.  But “great”?  I have struggled with Picoult’s “movie of the week” endings.  In fact, much of her writing feels written as a fast-track to Hollywood — especially her endings. 

But with Nineteen Minutes, she finally seems to have taken her writing to another level.  The school shooter is a sympathetic character — the reader can’t help but feel compassion for him.  The victims — not all, but the best-known ones — are distinctly NOT sympathetic, even reprehensible at times.  And Josie, one of the protagonists, is neither wholly sympathetic nor reprehensible.  Picoult has created complex characters — within an admittedly sensationalistic context – and rewarded her reader with an appropriately complex and unsettling ending.  Ironically, this novel will most likely never be made into a movie — t.v., Hollywood, or otherwise — due to the fear that misunderstood and disenfranchised students would copy the shooter’s example (and few would want to watch the images of the book on a big screen, either), but I commend Picoult for questioning WHY school violence has become a constant in the lives of high school students.

Will students be assigned to read Nineteen Minutes in 100 years?  I doubt it…  but Picoult is doing what she does better than she has done it before…  Finally…