Change of Heart (2008)

I'm not sure how this ended up in my house, let alone why I felt such an obligation to read it. Later, looking up the conventional wisdom on Jodi Picoult, I learned the hefty novel is a bit of an also-ran in her ginormous catalog of over two dozen titles, often top 10 in rankings and polls but rarely top 5. In its details the story is as clanking as its title (someone here is going to need a heart transplant, you see, and others will need to reevaluate their opinions), but what bothered me more was the glib religiosity, for which I wasn't prepared. It sounds like Change of Heart is typical for Picoult in its topicality. I mean, check this out: A handyman, Shay Bourne, is convicted of the murders of the daughter and father in a household where he worked, and there is evidence the girl had been sexually assaulted. Bourne gets the death penalty, the first in New Hampshire in decades. While on death row, he learns that the younger sister of the murdered girl needs a healthy heart. Bourne wants to donate his, but there are complications because of the lethal injection he will get, which makes it impossible for him to be a donor. On top of all this, Bourne starts performing miracles. That's approximately where I got off the bus, and these miracles start early. Picoult is a skillful novelist—her book feels researched and believable in many important ways, and she juggles nicely the first-person reports of a few different characters. We only see Bourne from the outside but like many of these characters he's hard to believe as anything more than a device. At the same time, I have to give it up to Picoult for the book's other obvious function, which is the book reading group market. They are playing to it directly in my paperback edition, with a WSP Readers Club brand and, in the back, a Readers Club Guide, with suggested topics of discussion. And there is so much to discuss here, for people of goodwill: the death penalty, prison conditions, the justice system, organ donors and transplants, violence, death, loss, and of course that's good old Jesus coming along for the ride too, kinda sorta (still doesn't have any smokes). Change of Heart practically brings its own impetus for social interaction with it. And, yes, it might be fun to hang out with friends and loved ones and kick around some of the ideas, like dipping into Gregory Stock's Book of Questions on summer vacation or during Christmas week. The story in Change of Heart moves in swift, simple, and broad strokes to illustrate all its busy bullet points. You really should belong to a reading group to finish the experience. I'll give Picoult the benefit of the doubt that the simplifications are deliberate—to make it seem like a parable. But as a general rule for regular reading I don't like parables that much either.

In case it's not at the library.