Jodi Picoult, Breakout novels, and the Mysteriously Unsatisfying Ending
Okay, so I finished reading My Sister’s Keeper, after sitting up a bit later than I would have preferred. And all through, I’ve been finding it really quite a meaty and enjoyable book, with lots of lovely language and writing, and a smooth style that emotes effortlessly, until before you know it, you’re ebbing up and down with the emotional flows of the narrative and its characters. Which is kind of wank-speak for the fact that I liked the book, I liked the characters, and I got kind of caught up in it.
I’m giving nothing away by explaining the premise of the book, which is that a girl, Anna is deliberately conceived by her parents in the hope of finding a match for their older daughter, Kate, who has leukemia. So basically Anna has been Kate’s medical donor her entire life, enduring painful medical procedures and watching her sister wait during her time between remission and relapse. The story is hinged on what happens when, at the age of thirteen, Anna decides to seek medical emancipation from her parents, in order to make her own choices. The fallout for the entire family, of course, is huge.
Like I said, I enjoyed the book, despite not being a big fan of the genre. I thought Picoult had a mastery of the style, and even the romantic subplot between two secondary characters failed to deter me, but then I reached the finale.
(Major spoilers from here on in. If you don’t want to know the ending, mind the cut)
In the finale, Anna gets killed in a car accident just a few minutes after finally signing the forms that give her medical emancipation from her parents, which has been the whole purpose of the book. Its whole purpose. And then her kidney, which she was justifiably steadfast in refusing to donate to her sister for the entire narrative, gets taken and given to the sister anyway. And then the sister lives a long and happy life, although she really misses Anna. The End.
Man, I got really tight about it. My first reaction was that this was a rip-off. As in, I’ve just invested X-amount of emotional energy in a book, only to have the outcome kind of stolen from me. It seemed like a massive waste of time. Why have Anna die at the end, and make everything she fought for come to nothing? Why put the family through all that palava over the court case and then have this as the outcome? Why lead the reader along with the sense of rightness and relief at the finish, when you feel like Anna and her family have come to terms with Anna’s need for emancipation, and the inevitable death of Kate, the elder daughter?
So I got to thinking about it. And I thought - well, if I was Picoult, what other options would I have? And here’s what I came up with:
1. Anna gets her emancipation, Kate dies, everyone makes peace with each other - kind of a lame but realistic way to finish, the plot floats to a naturalistic conclusion.
2. Anna gets her emancipation, but Kate decides to finally take some control of her life and kills herself/refuses ongoing treatment - ramps up the drama, highlights the solidarity of the sisters against Kate’s disease, but does open the door for new chorus of wails, and also takes the focus off Anna, and onto Kate.
3. Anna gets her emancipation, Jesse takes matters into his own hands and kills Kate, either by stealth or otherwise - once again, takes the spotlight off Anna, but if he did it in a quiet way, then it could work out, also gives the only character in the book who didn’t seem to have a totally rounded development something pivottal to do.
Those three plot finishers are the only ones I could come up with on short notice. But I think at least the first one would have been preferable. Because I thought the human drama was sufficient unto itself, and didn’t need this kind of fake, heightened drama to bring it to a conclusion. And I also though the relationship between Julia, the guardian ad litem, and Campbell, the lawyer, was kind of lame and unnecessary and I would sometimes skip those bits and go to a part that had Anna in it.
But the rules of writing the ‘breakout novel’ (ie. the bestseller) don’t resemble the rules of real life: in other words, what is unlikely is possible, what is impossible is plausible, what is over the top is preferable. If the characters aren’t having the absolute worst day in the history of bad days, then the narrative is lacking conflict and people won’t read it. Which I don’t know if I agree with here - I think maybe less would have been more. The authenticity of the human drama that the whole story is pinned on starts to fall into question when you have too many coincidences or freakish happenings (like conveniently fatal car smashes). . And when the authenticity (reality) of what the characters are experiencing falls into doubt, that’s when I start to pull away from the book.
So what did I think in the end? That it was a good book that ended poorly. Which is a shame because up to that point, I was totally buying it. And what does this say about writing 'breakout' fiction? I don't know what it says to you, but to me it says that sometimes I think you have to follow what your gut tells you about what works in a narrative, and don't worry about a bunch of stupid 'rules'.