Editor: Christina P.

Jodi Picoult is the New York Times bestselling author of popular books such as Nineteen Minutes and By Any Other Name. Picoult, known for her advocacy work with multiple organizations such as VIDA: Women in Literary Arts¹ and the New Hampshire Coalition Against the Death Penalty², seems to want to keep books political.

However, critics have accused the author of online bullying and the mishandling of important subject matter both within the pages of her books and on her social media platforms. Picoult has been called out for her views on self-publishing as well as utilizing public tragedies to promote her books. Is the criticism warranted? Let’s find out.

Don’t Self Publish

In October 2023, author Jodi Picoult found herself in the center of a BookTok controversy after posting a TikTok in which she stated, “What do I think of self-publishing? Don’t. Don’t do it.”

The author stated that self-publishing was the “easy way out” in the since deleted video where she seemingly conflates vanity publishing with self-publishing. This statement caused an uproar from readers and authors alike, who immediately began stitching Picoult’s video to explain the privilege of her viewpoint. “Stitching” allows you to combine a video on TikTok with one you’re creating – using a part of another creator’s video as a part of your own video (in this case, to comment or expand on a statement or conversation). Unlike many authors who take the self-publishing route, Picoult firmly belongs to the most represented group of authors in publishing- white authors.³ This limited viewpoint fails to take into consideration the ways in which Black, brown, and other racialized authors have been ignored or rejected by traditional publishing.⁴

Furthermore, the statement ignores the incredibly hard work that goes into becoming an independent author. To self-publish, one must use their own time, money, and resources to get their book in the hands of readers (not to mention the new skills one must learn – like marketing, social media managing, etc.).

Small Great Things

The story of Tonya Battle inspired Picoult’s 2016 novel, Small Great Things. Battle, a seasoned neonatal nurse, filed a lawsuit against her employer for including a discriminatory note on an infant’s file, prohibiting Black nurses from caring for the child. As Picoult states in her article for TIME entitled “Are You Sure You’re Not Racist?”, she felt inspired to write this story for people like her. Please be aware the following contains spoilers for Small Great Things.

“Suddenly I knew that unlike my earlier attempt, I was going to finish this book. I wasn’t writing Small Great Things to explain to people of color what their lives were like — I had no right to do that, and I never will. I was writing to an audience of people who looked and acted like me. I was admitting that it’s easy to point at a skinhead and call him a racist. It’s harder to realize that you’re one too — not because of deliberate bias, but because of the unearned advantages of being born white.”

Specifically, Small Great Things tells the story of a Black nurse named “Ruth,” who is told not to touch the child of two white supremacists. When the child dies and they accuse Ruth of wrongdoing, she must work with her lawyer to clear her name. The book is told from the perspective of Turk (the child’s father), Kennedy (Ruth’s attorney), and Ruth. The multiple perspectives are used to humanize the different players within the story, and that is where the issues arise.

The first n****r I ever met killed my older brother. I sat between my parents in a Vermont courtroom, wearing a stiff-collared shirt choking me, while men in suits argued and pointed at diagrams of cars and tire skids. I was eleven and Tanner sixteen.

Turk, Small Great Things

Reading through reviews and chapter summaries, Picoult falls into the same trap that many white authors do when telling these stories–they provide sympathy for white supremacy, as well as attempt to evoke that emotion in readers. The author writes Turk as a character that becomes fully engaged in white supremacy after a Black man kills his brother in a car accident. Similarly, Turk’s father-in-law becomes immersed in the ideology after he accuses his Black partner, Adele, of cheating on him and beats her, before forcing her to leave her daughter behind. The cause for both men’s violent hatred subsequently becomes the fault of the Black people who ‘wronged’ them. While I don’t think Picoult meant to do this, it’s a common theme I see when white writers include these topics in their books. As another example, Tillie Cole’s Darkness Embraced comes to mind.⁵

It is clear from Picoult’s author note (which states the same information as the TIME article) that this was not her intention. What she set out to do was create a book that spoke to other privileged white people about their inherent racism. However, when reading Small Great Things, it was very clear that the primary character, Ruth, is merely a plot device to enable the white people around her to grapple with their own racism. Turk, the white supremacist, is a well-developed character, while Ruth’s character is underdeveloped, making the book focus primarily on Turk’s redemption. He does nothing to redeem himself throughout the book, but in the end, he joins the Anti-Defamation League and teaches his daughter to not be racist.

I am not a racist, Ruth. And I understand that you’re upset, but it’s a little unfair of you to take it out on me, when I’m just trying to do my best—my professional best—to help you. For God’s sake, if I’m walking down a street and a Black man is coming toward me and I realize I’m going the wrong way, I keep going the wrong direction instead of turning around so he won’t automatically think I’m afraid of him.”

Kennedy, Small Great Things

Reviews of this book cite issues with:

• The story uses the white lawyer, Kennedy, as a white savior for Ruth.
• Over inclusion of stereotypes and microaggressions that readers felt appeared as a ‘checklist’ for what Picoult learned in her research. The word ‘n****r’ is used 30 times within the book alone.
• Choosing to tell this story herself versus putting her substantial influence behind a Black author.

The Sarah Dessen Controversy

In 2019, Picoult involved herself in the controversy surrounding author Sarah Dessen when she sparked a wave of backlash in response to a quote from a college student published by the Aberdeen News. Brooke Nelson, a college junior, was quoted by the Abeerdeen News stating, “She’s fine for teen girls, but definitely not up to the level of Common Read. So I became involved simply so I could stop them from ever choosing Sarah Dessen.”

Dessen posted a screenshot of the article with the student’s name redacted but left a portion of the school’s name in the shot while stating, “Authors are real people. We put our heart and soul into the stories we write often because it is literally how we survive in this world. I’m having a really hard time right now and this is just mean and cruel. I hope it made you feel good.”

This action led to a wave of bullying and harassment towards the student, forcing Nelson to deactivate her social media accounts. Authors such as Jennifer Wiener, Angie Thomas, Dhonielle Clayton, and many more swiftly came to Dessen’s defense. Picoult’s criticism took a feminist angle stating, “Not only does it suck because Sarah Dessen is one of the loveliest women you’ll ever meet [but also because] this suggests stories about young women matter less. That they are not as worthy or literary as those about anything but young women.”

Picoult went on to state, “This kind of thinking is what leads to gender discrimination in publishing.”

However, the crux of the issue is not one of feminism or gender discrimination in publishing. The crux of the issue is an author, after finding a three-year-old article, had her feelings hurt. In their defense of Dessen, authors such as Picoult created imaginary straw men while sending a wave of a hate toward a college student. A student who had every right to take part in a decision-making process that affected her education. By jumping headfirst into the situation (as she seems wont to do) Picoult caused harm in ‘defense’ of a subject she cares deeply about.

School Shootings as Self Promo

The public received this thread poorly and immediately called Picoult on using a genuine tragedy as self-promotion. The shooting, in which a 17-year-old boy murdered an 11-year-old boy and injured others, was initially labeled as “retaliation for bullying.” However, the shooter was later shown to be obsessed with violence and had planned the attack nearly two months in advance. The student also attempted to live stream the attack, but Meta quickly pulled the stream. Iowa Department of Public Safety Commissioner Stephan Bayens stated, “he desired to be famous, he desired to commit suicide, he desired to take others with him.”

Picoult later followed up with an apology on Threads in which she expressed that she was simply trying to draw a line between marginalized teens and book banning. Picoult expressed that she felt books create empathy and compassion for others, and by removing those books, you remove ways for kids to make sense of their emotions. In her book, Picoult argues that school shooters are bullied and marginalized kids who reach their breaking point. She portrays the main character, Peter, as a sensitive and innocent kid who was provoked into killing his peers. Readers have criticized the book’s focus on portraying Peter as a tragic, sympathetic character, even though he is antagonistic towards his classmates. This is a common theme for Picoult, who in her quest to understand why bad things happen, writes those who do harm as characters to sympathize and potentially root for.

“The main problem with all of Picoult’s books is that she takes BIG IMPORTANT ISSUES and then deals with them with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer while at the same time skimming a really shallow layer of reality.” – review from Sean Kennedy on Goodreads

Picoult has previously posted a story on her Facebook in which she visited a high school where the entire student body read Nineteen Minutes as part of the curriculum. When speaking about her experience visiting the school, Picoult expressed how a student informed her that reading Nineteen Minutes led a student to decide against shooting his classmates. This student allegedly informed Picoult of this in front of the student body stating, “I don’t really have a question, but this October I was gonna bring a gun to school. Then my teacher assigned 19 Minutes, and I started reading, and I realized I wasn’t the only person who felt like this.”

The principal asked another student, described by Picoult as a wheelchair user, to speak. This student allegedly said, “Everyday in this school I am invisible. No one looks at me or talks to me. I came home a few weeks ago and told my mom I wanted to kill myself. She started crying and left my room. My homework was 19 Minutes. I read it in one night and it’s the reason I am still here.”

Where does this leave readers?

It is very clear from researching Picoult, reading her work, and reading reviews of her books that this is an author who firmly feels she is Doing the Right Thing. She is learning, growing, and sharing that information with her readers through her books. However, it is also clear that Picoult tends to insert herself into hot topics and present herself as an authority over those topics. In doing so, she fails to realize that her approach is often the height of white feminism and that her education in these subjects is often lacking and biased.

Picoult seems to regularly write her harmful characters as people who are seemingly misguided, misinformed, or who are hurting themselves. By doing this, Picoult removes their accountability and constructs a narrative where those who inflict harm are more likely to receive empathy than their victims. She reduces subjects, such as white supremacy, down to ‘hurt people hurt people’ and therefore continues to perpetuate harmful narratives around the topics she covers. She is, as expressed in What’s the deal with Stephen King? – a well-meaning white liberal.

As such, it is important for her readers to approach her work with a critical lense and an understanding that Picoult’s work may lack the nuance to appropriately cover the subject matter.

Citations and Resources

1 VIDA: Women in Literary Arts is a research-driven, non-profit organization that is committed to amplifying historically marginalized voices in the literary world.

2 Picoult served on the Advisory Committee of this organization, which successfully ended the death penalty in NH because of outreach, education and advocacy.

3 About 70% of the overall publishing workforce is white women, according to Lee and Low’s Diversity Baseline Survey (2023) https://www.leeandlow.com/about/diversity-baseline-survey/dbs3/

4 https://pen.org/press-release/new-pen-america-report-deep-and-persistent-obstacles-in-publishing-houses-impede-greater-diversity-in-terms-of-authors-and-stories-told/

5 “Darkness Embraced” by Tillie Cole focuses on a romance that involves the heir to the KKK.

Guardian Article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/15/ya-novelist-fans-go-after-critical-reader-sarah-dessen-twitter

The Aggie: https://theaggie.org/2020/01/10/sarah-dessens-twitter-meltdown-sheds-light-on-a-larger-issue/

TikTok stitch of Picoult’s self publishing video: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYAUatBQ/

Note: What’s the deal with? is a series that explores reasons why others dislike your favorite author. An author’s inclusion in this series is based on Patron votes. This series is intended for informed readership ONLY. This post is subject to updates and expansion.