My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Book Review
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Hodder 2004)
ISBN 978-0-340-91861-6


I have read most of Jodi Picoult's books. She is fairly unique in her approach and her prolific output in taking extremely controversial issues, usually issues I have very strong feelings about, and manages to show me the other side. Usually it is the side I have chosen to dismiss, or ignore or sometimes just haven’t considered. Some of my reasoning is hard to determine, a kind of subconscious ‘that’s how it is’ reasoning. She has written about bullying and mass killing of school students, organ donation from a murderer of the receiver’s sister and the issues surrounding an Amish family and a girl in trouble. Her novels are about normal life, families and relationships which experience something which tests their strength and their unity and their beliefs.


My Sister’s Keeper was published in 2004 and has recently been made into a film. Picoult who is a very keen researcher of the issues she covers, writes this one from the position of some expertise. That of a mother of a child who suffered some considerable illness.


Kate is the daughter of Sarah and Brian Fitzgerald. They have an older son Jesse and all seems well with their world. Until, at the age of two, Kate is diagnosed with a rare form of childhood leukaemia. None of the family are suitable as bone marrow donors and they are faced with the impossible – the death of their daughter. So they, as in Sarah, make the decision to have another child. Not as a replacement for Kate, but as a donor for Kate. Anna is Kate’s younger sister and a designer baby. Controversial issues but Sarah is clear that she loves Anna as much as Kate and that Anna would want this for her sister. From the second Anna is born, she undergoes medical intervention for the benefit of Kate.


Picoult weaves her way through the very difficult emotional and psychological issues which modern medical technology has created in its fast and creative development. Why wouldn’t a parent want to do all they could to help their dying child. Even if that meant using another? The reasoning behind Sarah’s beliefs is unshakeable and almost defendable. The focus of the story centres on the very real pressure of a family under duress, and a child with a terminal illness. Kate would like to be ‘normal’ and hates the attention and the demands her illness puts on her family. Jesse – a sultry teenager - turns to drastic attention seeking activities, including drugs, booze and fire raising. He craves the attention of someone, anyone. And Anna, at the age of thirteen, seeks legal help to obtain the rights to her own body. This decision seems to be generated by Kate’s last option to extend her life. A kidney transplant.


The story is told through the eyes of the key characters; Sarah and Brian, Kate, Jesse and Anna – with chapters dedicated to each where we learn of their conflicting and reasonable reactions to the enforced chaos the action by Anna brings. It also helps us to get to know the family, from the time before Kate’s illness and their mechanisms to cope with it. A separate small sub plot is provided through the relationship with Anna’s lawyer her Guardian Ad Litem, a woman appointed to represent and advocate on Anna’s behalf.


So, does Kate get her kidney in the end? Does the family survive and how does Anna cope with the overwhelming ball she has set rolling? The ending is a surprise, a cruel twist that brought more than a tear to my eye. It felt most unfair, but then, life is isn’t it?
However, the key to the stories, indeed to most of Picoult’s stories, is that there are always two (or more) sides to consider.