Good Reads / Community Library Notes
A Spark of Light
Jody Picoult
Review by Priscilla Comen
A Spark of Light
Jody Picoult
Review by Priscilla Comen
A Spark of Light, by Jody Picoult, is the story of “the Center” and Wren McElroy. It begins with her sitting at the Center where a man points a gun at her. The Center is the last standing abortion clinic in Mississippi. The man with the gun is George, and to him this had seemed like a holy crusade. Hugh McElroy is the hostage negotiator George has been talking to for hours. McElroy says George’s daughter would know he’d wanted to protect her. Men with rifles wait for him to exit the center.
Author Picoult describes types of hostage takers. McElroy knows it’s a matter of luck. Is his about to run out? Around the building are ambulances, SWAT teams, reporters, and people with placards. He must not forget this is a job. Don’t take it too personally. But one of the hostages is his kid. Suddenly, the front door opens and two women step outside. Wren had moved the couch away from the door as George had instructed her. Olive’s body was on the floor. Janise is being treated by an EMT outside, in shock. The police drive her to the station to make a statement. She knows how religions view personhood. Allen, the leader of the local Right to Life group, had sent her to the Center as a spy.
We meet Izzy who is pregnant and from a poor family. She lives with Parker whom she met when he had a broken leg and she was his nurse. He had gone to Yale University, went to a private school, and has a trust fund.
Bex is Hugh’s sister, Wren’s aunt. She loves them and needs no one else. She’s an artist. She knows Hugh has a plan to get them to safety. He always does. He offers himself as a hostage. Quandt, the SWAT leader wants to go in with his team. Hugh says no.
Louie Ward is an OBGYN who flies to clinics in the country. He was raised by the women in the Bayou neighborhood. Now he is in the hospital recovering from a gun shot wound. Joy brings home an anti-abortion activist after she has an abortion. Strange bedfellows. They exchange names, have tea. Joy wonders how she and Janine can return to normal tomorrow. Joy shows Janine the ultra-sound of her unborn child, a boy. Joy had made her choice, but she could also grieve.
In a hospital three hours away, Beth sees her court-appointed lawyer, Mandy DuVille. Beth hadn’t wanted to be a mother at seventeen. Mandy holds her close as she cries. Hugh has raised Wren by himself as his wife now lives in France with a younger man. Quandt says to Hugh as he goes inside the clinic, “Don’t be a hero.” “I’m not,” he says. “I’m a father.” Inside, George feels he and Hugh are not too different; Hugh thought it possible to reason with a madman. Were both men right?
Author Picoult describes Janine’s life. She has a younger brother with Downs Syndrome who makes her laugh. She becomes president of a Right to Life club at college. She knows both men and women bear responsibility for sex and parenthood. Izzy sits beside Olive’s body and pressures Olive’s chest. Louie has read everything Martin Luther King has written, and believes them deeply. He received scholarships to college and medical school. His mom had had an abortion to save the child she already had, Louie. He became an abortion provider although he was a Catholic. He went to the clinic every day. He wanted the women to know they were not alone. Izzy tended to Louie’s wound. He knew she was pregnant and assured her she’d get out and have a bouncing baby.
Joy had met a handsome man in a bar and she took him home because he looked so sad. He was a judge and treated her nicely. Then he left her. Now she is pregnant. Wren has wounded the shooter with a scalpel and he wraps a tourniquet around the wound. Back with Beth at the hospital, Mandy is with her and so is prosecutor Willie Cork. She is charged with murder of her unborn fetus. Mississippi has laws to protect the vulnerable, says attorney Cork. Mandy protests and protects Beth from Cork. The cases Cork discusses have all been thrown out of court.
Wren hadn’t told her father Hugh about Randy’s kisses. She had come to the clinic only for birth control. Her aunt Bex had brought her. Back to Beth, we find she had medicated herself with pills from the Internet and put the dead fetus into the garbage. She had ended up in ER because of bleeding.
At the clinic the television announces that the shooter had killed innocent civilians in Bosnia, but George mutters that wasn’t the truth. He fears his daughter will hear this. She is the “light of his life.” He recalls that in truth he had saved a Muslim girl from rape by Serb men. He had killed the Serbs. No one believed him at the court martial. Hugh orders the communication lines cut. He doesn’t want George to be upset by any news.
Olive had been a professor and hopes she’ll not remember this horrible event. She taught about the brain and its memories. Izzy tapes Wren’s hands as George instructs her and secretly inserts a scalpel inside the tape. Hugh learns that Wren came to the clinic for birth control, not for an abortion. He would have taken her. His wife had run away with another man; so had George’s wife. Maybe, he thinks, some things should stay hidden. Had they both looked for their wives? Do they have that in common? Author Picoult describes George’s life as a child; his father had killed a sparrow George was trying to save. Author Picoult shows us his relationship with his daughter, Lil. He braided her hair and they talked easily at those times. George looks around, amazed at the mess he has created.
Author Picoult takes the reader back through the hours and days leading up to the present stand-off between Hugh and George. She takes events from life and weaves them with fiction into a dramatic novel. When an egg and a sperm come together, they create a “spark of light.” Thus the title. Author Picoult resolves these lives in unexpected ways: What happens to Bex? Does Wren escape the shooter? What happens to George and does Hugh come out a hero? Who is George’s daughter? Find out on the fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Author Picoult describes types of hostage takers. McElroy knows it’s a matter of luck. Is his about to run out? Around the building are ambulances, SWAT teams, reporters, and people with placards. He must not forget this is a job. Don’t take it too personally. But one of the hostages is his kid. Suddenly, the front door opens and two women step outside. Wren had moved the couch away from the door as George had instructed her. Olive’s body was on the floor. Janise is being treated by an EMT outside, in shock. The police drive her to the station to make a statement. She knows how religions view personhood. Allen, the leader of the local Right to Life group, had sent her to the Center as a spy.
We meet Izzy who is pregnant and from a poor family. She lives with Parker whom she met when he had a broken leg and she was his nurse. He had gone to Yale University, went to a private school, and has a trust fund.
Bex is Hugh’s sister, Wren’s aunt. She loves them and needs no one else. She’s an artist. She knows Hugh has a plan to get them to safety. He always does. He offers himself as a hostage. Quandt, the SWAT leader wants to go in with his team. Hugh says no.
Louie Ward is an OBGYN who flies to clinics in the country. He was raised by the women in the Bayou neighborhood. Now he is in the hospital recovering from a gun shot wound. Joy brings home an anti-abortion activist after she has an abortion. Strange bedfellows. They exchange names, have tea. Joy wonders how she and Janine can return to normal tomorrow. Joy shows Janine the ultra-sound of her unborn child, a boy. Joy had made her choice, but she could also grieve.
In a hospital three hours away, Beth sees her court-appointed lawyer, Mandy DuVille. Beth hadn’t wanted to be a mother at seventeen. Mandy holds her close as she cries. Hugh has raised Wren by himself as his wife now lives in France with a younger man. Quandt says to Hugh as he goes inside the clinic, “Don’t be a hero.” “I’m not,” he says. “I’m a father.” Inside, George feels he and Hugh are not too different; Hugh thought it possible to reason with a madman. Were both men right?
Author Picoult describes Janine’s life. She has a younger brother with Downs Syndrome who makes her laugh. She becomes president of a Right to Life club at college. She knows both men and women bear responsibility for sex and parenthood. Izzy sits beside Olive’s body and pressures Olive’s chest. Louie has read everything Martin Luther King has written, and believes them deeply. He received scholarships to college and medical school. His mom had had an abortion to save the child she already had, Louie. He became an abortion provider although he was a Catholic. He went to the clinic every day. He wanted the women to know they were not alone. Izzy tended to Louie’s wound. He knew she was pregnant and assured her she’d get out and have a bouncing baby.
Joy had met a handsome man in a bar and she took him home because he looked so sad. He was a judge and treated her nicely. Then he left her. Now she is pregnant. Wren has wounded the shooter with a scalpel and he wraps a tourniquet around the wound. Back with Beth at the hospital, Mandy is with her and so is prosecutor Willie Cork. She is charged with murder of her unborn fetus. Mississippi has laws to protect the vulnerable, says attorney Cork. Mandy protests and protects Beth from Cork. The cases Cork discusses have all been thrown out of court.
Wren hadn’t told her father Hugh about Randy’s kisses. She had come to the clinic only for birth control. Her aunt Bex had brought her. Back to Beth, we find she had medicated herself with pills from the Internet and put the dead fetus into the garbage. She had ended up in ER because of bleeding.
At the clinic the television announces that the shooter had killed innocent civilians in Bosnia, but George mutters that wasn’t the truth. He fears his daughter will hear this. She is the “light of his life.” He recalls that in truth he had saved a Muslim girl from rape by Serb men. He had killed the Serbs. No one believed him at the court martial. Hugh orders the communication lines cut. He doesn’t want George to be upset by any news.
Olive had been a professor and hopes she’ll not remember this horrible event. She taught about the brain and its memories. Izzy tapes Wren’s hands as George instructs her and secretly inserts a scalpel inside the tape. Hugh learns that Wren came to the clinic for birth control, not for an abortion. He would have taken her. His wife had run away with another man; so had George’s wife. Maybe, he thinks, some things should stay hidden. Had they both looked for their wives? Do they have that in common? Author Picoult describes George’s life as a child; his father had killed a sparrow George was trying to save. Author Picoult shows us his relationship with his daughter, Lil. He braided her hair and they talked easily at those times. George looks around, amazed at the mess he has created.
Author Picoult takes the reader back through the hours and days leading up to the present stand-off between Hugh and George. She takes events from life and weaves them with fiction into a dramatic novel. When an egg and a sperm come together, they create a “spark of light.” Thus the title. Author Picoult resolves these lives in unexpected ways: What happens to Bex? Does Wren escape the shooter? What happens to George and does Hugh come out a hero? Who is George’s daughter? Find out on the fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.