Lip Lit: Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home

When I was fifteen, I read The Pact by Jodi Picoult. It soon became one of my favourite books. I was struck by the intriguing story line, the different voices, the lyricism. I told all of my friends to read it, and after they did, they all thanked me. I became a devout Picoult lover. I went back and read all of her previously published novels and would be at the bookstore on the day her latest book was released.

But somewhere along the line — around the time of Vanishing Acts — I stopped enjoying her novels. They started becoming as formulaic as a Nicholas Sparks novel. Picoult’s template is as follows: take a heated issue, write in different voices, set a large section in a courtroom.

Sing You Home, Picoult’s latest novel, is just as formulaic. Zoe and Max Baxter spend ten years trying for a child, and after a successful attempt at IVF become pregnant. At seven-months, Zoe miscarries. The marriage dissolves. Zoe falls in love with her friend, Vanessa. Max falls in love with Christianity. Zoe and Vanessa want to have a child using the stored embryos. Max, thinking that a lesbian partnership is not an appropriate environment to raise a child, refuses to release them. A court-room battle ensures.

With her eldest son coming out, gay rights are clearly an issue close to Picoult’s heart. I admire her for bringing these to public attention, and I support the message that she was hoping to convey. I strongly believe that anyone who can provide a child with love, safety and security deserves to be a parent and have those rights legally protected. I applaud Picoult for giving the fight for these rights faces.

However – and I say this as an atheist – making Max deny Zoe the embryos and not accept her new sexuality on the basis of religion is all a little too easy for me for. It would have been more interesting if Max’s homophobia had nothing to do with religious beliefs. Or if Max wasn’t homophobic but he was just hurt from the divorce and didn’t want anyone else to raise his child. But instead of delving into things that are messy and complex and often inexplainable, Picoult takes the more simplistic headline-grabbing cliched route. And the route that gives her characters an easy to digest excuse for behaving so awfully. And that’s a pity.

Because in life, things are so unbelievably messy. People are complex and layered. They can be reprehensible and lovely all at once. There are so many things left unsaid. People don’t often put themselves on the line. Things don’t get wrapped up in a pretty pink bow or end in a guessed-it-on-page-twenty twist. And I think the lack of mess and predictability is why I found myself listlessly flicking through Sing You Home.

I’m not sure if I’ve stopped enjoying Picoult’s books because my literary aptitude and my life experience have matured, or if it’s because she’s become a chain-store-novel darling. Does she just need to churn them out and go on so many publicity tours that she doesn’t have time to write books with complexity?

However, there is something wonderful about Picoult. Since she’s continuously on the New York Times best-sellers lists, she obviously gets people reading. Her novels also go behind glitter and romance, and delve into issues that many writers shy away from. I think she’s done a wonderful job at writing for people who aren’t literary readers and I think that’s important and completely valid. It brings her in a pretty steady and hefty pay-check, and that’s pretty hard for a writer to walk away from. So, while her books may disappoint me because I can see moments in her writing that hint she is capable of far more, I can appreciate how she has carved out her own niche.

I also have to congratulate her for using different techniques in fiction. In The Tenth Circle she inserted a graphic novel throughout the chapters. In Sing you Home there are recorded tracks you can download that accompany each chapter. While I actually wasn’t into the book enough to actually take the time to listen to the songs, Picoult is clearly a writer who thinks beyond words.

So, would I recommend for you to read Sing You Home? I would if you just read casually, and appreciate a book on a lazy day with a cup of tea. But if you are an avid reader who likes to be challenged, who likes books that make you think about an issue far after you put it down, and who underlines bits of affecting prose – back far far away.