Change of Heart
A Novel
by Jodi Picoult
List Price: $16.00
Pages: 480
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780743496759
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Jodi Picoult received an A.B. in creative writing from Princeton and a master's degree in education from Harvard. The recipient of the 2003 New England Book Award for her entire body of work, she is the author of fourteen novels, including The Tenth Circle, Vanishing Acts, and My Sister's Keeper, for which she received the American Library Association's Margaret Alexander Edwards Award. Recently, she penned several issues of Wonder Woman for DC Comics. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children. Visit her website at www.jodipicoult.com.
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Q: What was the seed that started this story? You've sympathetically delved into the minds of criminals in your previous novels, but what led you this time to death row?
JP: Most of my books begin with something I'm worrying about, and Change of Heart was no exception. As an American, I feel like this country can be folded along a fault line of religion -- all the controversial issues (abortion, gay rights, capital punishment) can often be judged along religious lines. It got me wondering why religion, which was historically meant to unite people, has become so divisive...and why we believe what we do. Who says that just because you're right, that means someone else has to be wrong? Why do we believe the things that we do -- because they're right, or because it's too scary to admit we don't know the answers? I narrowed the focus along capital punishment because it's one of the controversies in America that people have passionate opinions about -- but often don't know why they have those opinions, or bother to listen to the other side's arguments...and because I myself didn't know how I'd feel about the death penalty when I finished exploring its underlying issues.
Q: Did you personally visit death row prisoners? What was that experience like? What did you expect going in, and what were you surprised by?
JP: I've been to death row in Arizona, twice now. It's a very strange place -- in all the years I've been doing research, I don't think I've ever seen such a cloud of secrecy like the one I found there. I was literally on a plane when my visit was being nearly canceled -- I had to arrive at the facility and talk my way into it, because they decided if I was a writer, I must be "media." I was able to charm the authorities into giving me a tour of their death row -- which is more serene than you'd think, because the inmates are locked into their individual cells twenty-three hours a day. Then I begged to be taken to the execution chamber -- the death house, as it used to be called in Arizona. It was while I was examining their gas chamber (Arizona uses both gas and lethal injection) that the warden approached me to ask me again who I was, and why I was writing a book about this. She definitely had her guard up -- and wasn't budging an inch. We started talking about the last execution in Arizona; and at some point she mentioned she was a practicing Catholic. "If you're Catholic," I said, "do you think the death penalty is a good thing?" She stared at me for a long moment and then said, "I used to." At that moment, the wall between us came down, and she was willing to tell me everything I wanted and needed to know -- including scenes you'll see in Change of Heart -- details that are top secret, and that aren't even given to prisoners who sue for the information. At one point I was talking to the warden in the death house, and I was having trouble juggling notebooks and papers. I leaned against the closest surface to take notes more easily...only to realize I was sprawled across the lethal injection gurney, which really freaked me out! What surprised me the most about death row was that everyone I met who worked there in Arizona said they did not believe in the death penalty -- they'd seen too many old feeble men executed, because the system takes so long; they'd seen recidivist criminals whose crimes weren't "eligible" for the death penalty. To them, justice didn't seem particularly just, and yet they all also said they would continue to do their jobs. I went back a second time to meet a death row prisoner named Robert Towery. We are still pen pals -- he calls me ma'am, asks after my kids, and is a brilliant artist (he has to make his own pigments, like Lucius in Change of Heart). He fills me in on the plots of Lost and Grey's Anatomy. He is by all accounts a very nice guy -- except for the fact that he committed armed robbery and told the victim he was going to anesthetize him...and instead injected the guy with battery acid and killed him. He says he was high at the time, and has been sober for over a decade now. It really made me think hard: We all know it's wrong to execute someone innocent. But what about someone who's guilty?
Q: When did you first encounter the Gnostic gospels and what did you find striking about them?
JP: I had first heard about them on a PBS documentary, and I was struck by the individuality they advocated in religious practice -- the idea that it's different for everyone, that there might be many paths up to the same spiritual peak. I remember thinking at the time what a different world this would have been if they'd been the dominant gospels, rather than the ones we've seen in the New Testament. Elaine Pagels, one of the foremost authorities on the Gnostic gospels, is a professor at Princeton, my alma mater. I was fortunate enough to badger her into a private tutorial, so that I could learn more about them. After Jesus's death, Christianity was a mess -- people believed all sorts of different things and studied many different gospels. One group, the Gnostic Christians, felt that being baptized was a good beginning, but that to know God, you have to know yourself. Or in other words, there's a little bit of divinity in all of us, coded and hidden...and it's up to each of us to figure out how to get it out. The Gnostics felt that religion was something that by definition had to be personal -- and that if you simply believed what others told you to believe or said the right words during a church service or just got baptized, it wasn't enough to reach spiritual fulfillment. Above all else, the Gnostics said, ask questions. Don't believe everything you're told; don't assume that just because someone says "This is the way it should be done" that he or she is right. As you can imagine, this sent the early Christian church into a tizzy -- and the Gnostic gospels were labeled heretical, and disappeared...until 1945, when two brothers dug up a jar while looking for fertilizer in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, and found fifty-one of those gospels. In the meantime, Irenaeus -- the bishop of Lyons -- codified the Church by deciding that there would be four main gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and laying the cornerstones of the Nicene Creed. In doing that, Irenaeus said: "Believe this, and you're Christian. If you don't believe this, you're not." Now, there are a lot of good reasons -- political and religious -- why Orthodox Christianity had to reject the Gnostic movement in order to solidify its own beliefs...but something else was lost along with those gospels: the belief that people might reach spiritual enlightenment in a variety of ways, rather than one "right" way. "If you bring forth what is within you," Jesus says, in the Gospel of Thomas, "what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." Sounds like a riddle, right? But it's actually pretty simple: the potential to free yourself -- or ruin yourself -- is entirely up to you. Which gets pretty interesting when you're talking about a condemned man who happens to think that donating his heart to the sister of his victim is the way to save himself.
Q: In your acknowledgments you say that "it's very hard to write about religion responsibly." Why do you think that's so, and do you think it's specific to religious culture in the United States?
JP: In this country, which was founded by people seeking religious freedom, there isn't just the chance to practice what you want -- there's also the freedom of speech to preach it. The rise of the Evangelical movement in particular shows the difference between following one's religion and feeling obligated to save the souls of others who haven't found the same spiritual enlightenment you have. To the preacher, the act of trying to convert someone is doing that person a favor. To those who don't wish to be converted, however, it's very intrusive. To that end, it's really hard to write about religion without preaching -- but instead, with the intention to get people to understand why they believe what they do, and whether that necessarily means everyone else's beliefs are rendered null and void. It's interesting: I interviewed rabbis and priests and ministers for this book, and every last one of them was fantastic and admitted that they don't really know which religion, if any, is the "right" one -- and that there may be a lot of ways to reach spiritual enlightenment...but that open-mindedness does not always filter down through the congregations, unfortunately! People who pick up Change of Heart aren't going to find me preaching to them -- because, as the book suggests, what I believe isn't necessarily what they have to believe or should believe -- but they will find me asking them to think hard about their beliefs.
Q: This is a provocative book and will no doubt be controversial. What do you hope this novel might add to conversations about religion and capital punishment?
JP: I hope that instead of looking at religion as a set of absolutes, people who read Change of Heart might look at the book as a chance to start a conversation. As for the death penalty, I hope while exploring the reasons that capital punishment is allegedly good for us, we can be honest enough to admit those explanations don't always stand up to logic -- which means that if we keep capital punishment on the law books, we have to admit that it may not be fair, or cheaper, or a deterrent...but instead a way for us to permanently exclude from society someone who we think doesn't belong there with us.
Q: You constructed this story by interweaving the narratives of four main characters -- June, Michael, Lucius, and Maggie. How difficult is it to juggle those four voices? Did you find yourself naturally wanting to give equal time to each character, or did you feel inclined to stay with one longer?
JP: When I write a book in multiple narratives, there is always one or two that are easier than others. In Change of Heart, Maggie was by far the most fun to write -- she has a terrific, easy, funny voice. June was the most painful, and the one that caught me most unawares. When I as a writer thought I knew how I felt about capital punishment, I'd write one of June's sections and flip-flop. Lucius was enjoyable, too, because he's not your typical prisoner, and because he's an instrument through which we get to hear and see Shay. Michael was the hardest for me -- probably because he was the least open-minded at first!
Q: Why did you decide not to write from Shay's point of view?
JP: Maggie, Michael, Lucius, and June correspond with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Shay, as the messianic character, does not have his own voice in a "gospel" -- and neither does Jesus, in the New Testament.
Q: A lot of work and research has been done recently on "restorative justice," a mutual healing process where victims and offenders meet face-to-face. Do you think that this is a credible way of dealing with serious criminals?
JP: I think in many cases, what a victim wants more than anything is to hear that the perpetrator is sorry. And also, in many cases, the perpetrator needs to be able to say that to the victim and his or her family in order to move on. It certainly won't work in all situations -- as you see in Change of Heart -- but I wish it was more prevalent in prison settings. To me, a successful restorative justice meeting is a better indicator of a change of heart for an inmate, and fosters more healing, than a life sentence where no reconciliation ever occurs.
Q: What's next for you?
JP: Handle with Care -- the 2009 novel, which is about a wrongful birth suit. These cases are pretty fascinating -- it involves a parent suing her OB for not being told earlier that a child was going to be severely impaired. Most parents who sue love their kids very much...but want to give them the best lives possible, which is very expensive given the level of physical impairment, so they sue. However, it means getting up in front of a jury and saying that if you'd known your child was going to be this handicapped, you would never have had the baby. Not only is that emotionally devastating...but it usually creates a lawsuit that circles back to questions of abortion rights, and who gets to decide what sort of life is or isn't worth living. At what point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How handicapped is too handicapped? As you can see, lots of thorny moral and ethical questions in this one -- which is why I love it! In Handle with Care the stakes are a bit higher, because the OB -- Piper Reece -- and the mom -- Charlotte O'Keefe -- are best friends...until Charlotte's daughter is born with osteogenesis imperfecta type III, a very severe form of brittle bone disease. These are children who, literally, will have hundreds of breaks over the course of a lifetime; you can lift up your infant and break her back; she can roll over and break her ribs. Thematically, the book explores the things that break apart in times of stress: bones, friendships, families.
© Copyright 2009 by Jodi Picoult. Reprinted with permission by Washington Square Press. All rights reserved.
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