I'm taking Sarah's long-standing dare by reading a Jodi Picoult novel--in this case, The Pact. And I'm finding--surprise!--it's just as bad as I thought it would be.

The story, so far, is that generic teenager Christopher and his generic girlfriend, Emily, who have known each other (literally) all their lives, are out on a date, when Emily is--you guessed it!--is shot in the head. Can you see where this is going? Yes, Christopher is accused of the murder, and many, many questions come up regarding his personal demons, and the strength of familial bond is sorely tested after every revelation (Christopher, who's seventeen, drinks!). Then Christopher is arrested. He stands trial for Emily's murder. He's acquitted. And everyone just sort of goes on his or her merry way, changed somehow, but now stronger because of everything they've been through. Emotions will be vague, but there is crying and forgiveness.

Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm only three chapters in, and Christopher hasn't been arrested yet. Hell, he hasn't even been accused. (But he will be, I'm certain; the implication is already there.) There hasn't been a lot of crying, though. The marionettes are hopping along, trying to be strong--which is to say, stoic--and trying to stop the unraveling that's sure to come. (Police detectives, though kind and female, are meddlesome fuckers, aren't they?)

But The Pact leaves me wondering why people even bother reading this shit. Isn't Lifetime dedicated to the kind of sentimental tripe that Picoult regularly churns out? Even the dialogue reads like it was transcribed from an atrocious Hallmark television movie. Yet the biggest problem I'm having with The Pact is how passive Picoult is. (This is a bigger problem than you might think.) Maybe she's too focused on getting it right--reading the acknowledgements, one is supposed to believe that she did a lot of research for her novel--but she has no interest in her story--or even storytelling, for that matter--or her characters. The Pact isn't drama; it's a dramatization, a series of events stitched together without structure or forethought. And it sure as hell isn't tragic--we know nothing about Emily, so her death is really nothing more than a linchpin for Picoult to start in with themes of friendship, family, and conservatism. She'd rather use "shocking" revelations to propel the plot forward. Characterization comes during internal musings after a bit of dialogue. And all this makes for dry, dull, predictable reading.

Picoult seems like an author trying to live up to expectations. And the blurbs tell us what critics, and readers, expect from her: a novel that's "captivating" (Raleigh News & Observer), "suspenseful" (Detroit Free Press), "heart-wrenching" (Orlando Sentinel), "provocative" (Publishers Weekly), "engrossing" (People), and "beautiful" (Tampa Tribune). Sure, The Pact is readable, but it isn't interesting--for that, blame Picoult's lazy writing. (But when you're targeting teenage suicide, you don't really have to put forth any effort; the headlines will do all the work for you.)

Her passivity, her disinterest in drama and fiction, coupled with her focus on plot, leads us to a bigger problem: she and a host of other popular novelists have helped breed millions of passive, disinterested readers. By dumbing down her story and characters, Picoult is limiting the reader's involvement. Like Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, The Pact revels in vapidity. You don't have to think about it, as it contains no sense of drama. Picoult, like Sebold, is hoping that you're stupid enough to let her manipulate your emotions. She's hoping that you've seen enough television movies to fill in the blanks. The result (and irony), of course, is that such books are entirely empty of emotion. You come away from them feeling--well, feeling nothing at all.

Comments

[Citizen Reader]

Amen, my brother. Everything I've always thought about Jodi Picoult, only better articulated.

I've not read The Pact but I know that I haven't yet recovered from Nineteen Minutes (school shooting) or Handle with Care (degenerative genetic disease + abortion controversy). Ugh. I always feel like a traitor to my own sex, but how can women stand this shlock? Why must we wallow in sentimentality at the expense of true feeling? It makes me very sad, truthfully.

Okay, now I've got to do my Pynchon Penance...

[Brandon]

I can see how women like this kind of crap. It's fascinating to read, because--hate to say this--Picoult really is writing about a slice of contemporary Americana. Think about it: Americans buy self-help books by the millions, we love hearing about tragedy, Dr. Phil is our national therapist, and we diagnose ourselves after watching an episode of "The Doctors." So Picoult's success is unsurprising--she's merely another kind of lazy. But hey, that's what American culture has come to.

I don't think the Pynchon Penance will be as bad as you think. At least it ain't Picoult.