Small Great Things ★★★★☆

I don't think this book is for me, but I don't think it's supposed to be, and that's fine.

Small Great Things is written for white women who don't think of themselves as racist, and it's structured to walk that reader through exactly how their own thinking works, and where it goes wrong. There's no room for the reader to miss the point. Picoult puts it directly: "there is no such thing as a fact," only "how you saw the fact, in a given moment." That line could be the book's thesis statement.

The strongest material comes from Ruth, the Black nurse at the center of the story, whose internal accounting of her own life is the book's best writing. She lists out her education, her nursing certification, her "spotless Toyota RAV4," and then notes that none of it outweighs the one thing on the other side of the scale: her skin. That's the book working at its highest level, specific and lived-in rather than didactic.

Where it struggles is exposition. Picoult clearly did the research and clearly wants you to absorb all of it, and there are stretches where the book reads like it's teaching rather than telling a story. The ending also wraps up a little too neatly for a book about something this unresolved in real life. Real bias doesn't resolve in a satisfying arc, and the ending here wants you to feel like it did.

But given the intended audience, the lack of subtlety is probably the right call. A book trying to nudge someone toward uncomfortable self-recognition doesn't have room for ambiguity. It has to say the thing plainly, and Picoult does. "Justice will not be served," one line goes, "until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." That's blunt. It's also probably necessary for the reader this book is written for.

If you're the target audience, this is worth your time specifically because it won't let you off easy.

Edition Read

• Edition Type: Kindle Edition
• Number of Pages: 510 pages
• Date First Published: October 11, 2016
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• ISBN10: 034554496X
• ASIN: B01AQNYZ3I
• Language: English

Description

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene? Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong. With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.

Source: GoodReads

Notable Highlights

love has nothing to do with what you’re looking at, and everything to do with who’s looking. [loc. 213]

It just goes to show you: every baby is born beautiful. It’s what we project on them that makes them ugly. [loc. 216]

“The State doesn’t care what your supervisor said,” the union lawyer replies. “The State just sees a dead baby. They’re targeting you because they think you failed as a nurse.” “You’re wrong.” I shake my head in the darkness, and I say the words I’ve swallowed down my whole life. “They’re targeting me because I’m Black.” [loc. 2094]

On one side of the seesaw is my education. My nursing certification. My twenty years of service at the hospital. My neat little home. My spotless Toyota RAV4. My National Honor Society–inductee son. All these building blocks of my existence, and yet the only quality straddling the other side is so hulking and dense that it tips the balance every time: my brown skin. [loc. 2141]

“You’re destined to do small great things,” she told me. “Just like Dr. King said.” She was referring to one of her favorite quotes: If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way. [loc. 2839]

It’s easy to believe we’re all in this together when you’re not the one who was dragged out of your home by the police. But I know that when white people say things like that, they are doing it because they think it’s the right thing to say, not because they realize how glib they sound. [loc. 3304]

“When you start to see the seedy underbelly of America,” I say, “it makes you want to live in Canada.” [loc. 4916]

“Prejudice goes both ways, you know. There are people who suffer from it, and there are people who profit from it. Who died and made you Robin Hood? Who said I ever needed saving? [loc. 6622]