Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
English 11 Hailey Sparco
Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
Middletown High School
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Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
One of a handful of women authors in the United States who straddle the divide between
commercial and literary fiction is Jodi Picoult (Jodi Picoult, 2008). Jodi Picoult is on the best
seller list and has written eighteen novels over the course of her career. Two of her novels have
been adapted for television movies and a third has been optioned for a feature film. Picoult began
her writing career around the year of 1922, starting with her first novel “Songs of the Humpback
Whale”, and has published a novel every year since that time. Jodi Picoult constantly explores
heart rendering themes with questions that do not have a specific answer (Picoult, J., 2010). Her
novels are readable page turners but even after reading the last page you wonder what the right
thing to do about a controversial topic like that would be in those situations (Jodi Picoult, 2008).
Jodi Picoult has become a master at targeting hot issues and controversial topics.
I was born the daughter of Myron Michel and Jane Ellen in New York, New York on
May 19, 1966. As I was growing up I greatly enjoyed baking, kayaking and reading (Picoult, J.,
2010). My mother was a nursery school director as well as my father was a securities analyst, but
I discovered that I would be a bestselling and award winning novelist of eighteen novels. I
attended Princeton University to study creative writing and following graduation I became a
technical writer for a Wall Street brokerage firm as a copywriter at an ad agency (Picoult, J.,
2010). Then I later became an editor as a textbook publisher and then an 8th grade English
teacher (Jodi Picoult, 2008). I enrolled in Harvard University to gain my masters in education.
While I was studying at Princeton I was acquainted with Timothy Warren van Leer who I later
married and as I wrote my first novel I was pregnant with my first child, Kyle Cameron, then I
received Jacob Matthew and Samantha Grace (Picoult, J., 2010). Timothy and I now live in
Hanover, New Hampshire with our three children, our three Springer spaniels, two donkeys, two
geese, eight ducks, five chickens and occasional Holstein (Picoult, J., 2010).
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Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
Literature and history influenced my writing in many ways. I love reading novels by
other authors, for example some great authors I am influenced by are Yann Martel and Maurice
Sendak (Wands, D., 2011). History is what mainly helps me write my novels because I research
everything about a topic before I start writing about it. Also, my novels are written mostly about
controversial topics such as abuse, children, kidnapping and more, so therefore my information
needs to be true. I research extensively into the history of many topics to allow my novels to be
understood by the audience that it portrays. My novels typically center on topics such as family,
relationships and the balance of love so consequently I can use my prior knowledge from
personal experiences to help write and put emotion into the words of my novels (Wands, D.,
2011).
The audience that I write for is for anyone that enjoys reading about ethics and morality
(Jodi Picoult, 2010). If you want to know a question that there is no answer to then you should
take time to read a novel that I have written. It does not matter if the novel is about a rape victim
or a cancer patient; all of my novels have many different questions that have answers resulting
on the reader’s opinion because of their moral standards (Jodi Picoult, 2010). I want the reader
to know that no matter what you are dealing with in your lives, you are not alone (Picoult, J.,
2010). I hope that more people read my novels and come to realize that more people are dealing
with the same problems then they expected. Maybe after people read these novels they will
realize that a child, who is different, may not typically be less important than any other child
such as in “House Rules” (Picoult, J., 2010). Also maybe people will realize that a school
shooting can impact more lives than imaginable such as in “Nineteen Minutes” (Picoult, J.,
2010).
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Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
I enjoy writing books that make the reader think hard about questions that do not have
easy answers. I am typically drawn to themes of ethics and I include morality in my novels
(Wands, D., 2011). My personal inspiration is that I can include personal experiences into my
work, such as in my novel “House Rules” which speaks about autism. I have an autistic cousin
and several times I have witnessed meltdowns and times where he needed to be restrained. Most
people around us did not understand what was going on and has called authorities, which is how
I wrote about how the legal system works but only if you can communicate in a certain way
(Picoult, J., 2010). I study and do extensive research about each of the topics involved in my
novels. To do a novel about attorneys I personally meet with many attorneys to get all my legal
information in the novels accurate (Picoult, J., 2010). Also to do a novel about Asperger’s I met
with six teens that are diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and their parents face to face
(Picoult, J., 2010). I need to experience how the rest of the world deals with these topics to get
my information completely accurate and understandable.
Songs of the Humpback Whale
1992
Harvesting the Heart
Picture Perfect
1994
1995
Mercy
1996
The Pact
Keeping Faith
1998
1999
Plain Truth
2000
Salem Falls
2001
Perfect Match
2002
Tells the story of love, loss and self-discover through
the opinions of different characters
Irish Catholic who was given a unhappy childhood
A woman suffering from amnesia is taken in by an
officer new to the L.A. police force and is married to
Hollywood’s leading man
The path of two cousins driven to extremes by the
power of love
A legal thriller set in a New Hampshire town
Characters in a small town struggling to keep honesty
and faith
A dead infant found in the Pennsylvania Amish
country
A teacher spent eight months in jail because of an
affair with an underage student
Child abuse and a assistant direct attorney who
prosecutes such cases but fails to see signs of abuse in
her own child
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Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
Second Glance
2003
My Sister’s Keeper
2004
Vanishing Acts
2005
The Tenth Circle
2006
The Outsiders (Introduction)
2006
Nineteen Minutes
Change of Heart
2007
2008
Handle with Care
House Rules
2009
2010
Ross Whakeman has been swindled by fake ghost
hunters, they claim that they can help him find his lost
love
Explores the ramifications of cloning and gene
replacement therapy
A women conducts a search-and-rescue missions with
her bloodhound, but later realizes she’s actually a
missing person when her father is arrested for
kidnapping
Tells the story of a comic artist who writes a novel
that parallels the real life story of his teenage daughter
who was raped
Study of three brothers to stay together after their
parents death
Aftermath of a school shooting in a small town
New Hampshire’s first death row prisoner in 69 years
has only one last request to donate his heart postexecution to the sister of his victim
Child with severe osteogenesis imperfecta
Teenage boy with asperger’s syndrome
(Jodi Picoult, 2008) (Picoult, J., 2010)
The genres and style of writing that my novels usually portray are realistic fiction,
literary fiction, legal thrillers, psychological portraits, romances, and ghost stories (Jodi Picoult,
2008). Each and every book that is published creates a new reading experience for my audience,
with a completely new diverse story. Every novel that I write includes a situation where the
aspects of relationships, family, and the balance of love are shown (Wands, D., 2011).
Fascinating plots bring to light questions and issues that remain with a reader long after the last
page is turned (Jodi Picoult, 2010). I like to keep my readers thinking about the outcome of my
novels, and the situations that are tested throughout every page. Novels written by me are usually
published at a rate of about one best-selling novel per year. Each and every novel I write is
unique but includes the same ingredients of a clever plot, juicy topic and heart-rending family
dilemma that force the characters into a moral dilemma (Jodi Picoult, 2008). While writing
novels I try to take on hot topics, such as killings, molestation, date rape, infidelity and teen
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Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
suicide. Over the years I have developed a wide fan base that includes multiple generations of
both male and female readers that are attracted to my touching novels and wide spread variety of
genres (Jodi Picoult, 2008).
Along the way of becoming a bestselling author I have caught the eye of many critics
with many different opinions. Stephen King wrote that “Picoult writes with unassuming
brilliance” as well as “It’s hard to exaggerate how well Picoult writes” written by the Financial
Times (Picoult, J., 2010). Most critics have positive feedback for my novels and their
controversial ideas such as, “Picoult’s research is impeccable and she deals intelligently with
charged questions about autism and Asperger’s” written by Publishers Weekly (Picoult, J.,
2010). Later on in my career I caught the eye of DC Comics, which hired me to write some
plotlines for its upcoming Wonder Woman series (Jodi Picoult, 2008).
Jodi Picoult is a very important aspect of American literature because all of her novels
are written about a hot topic that she has greatly researched and is well known by mostly
everyone in the world. She has maintained a wide fan base that loves reading her controversial
books; therefore mostly anyone should enjoy reading her novels. Her topics are heard rending
and tear jerking, for readers of any age and gender. She has to maintain a life with three children
and still write novels in her spare time which is a very hard task to overcome (Picoult, J., 2010).
Jodi Picoult has received many awards over time and is a great best seller. Picoult creates
subjects that matter to people and push social norms to their breaking point white questioning
complicated issues (Jodi Picoult, 2010).
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Some Questions Cannot Be Answered: Jodi Picoult Author Study
References:
Jodi Picoult. (2008) In Newsmaker, biography in context. Detroit: Gale.
Jodi Picoult. (2010, Sept. 2) In Books and Authors. Gale.
Jodi Picoult. (2010, November 27) In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jodi_Picoult&oldid=399087917
Jodi Picoult. (2010) In Contemporary authors online. Detroit: Gale.
Picoult, J. (2010, Dec. 22) In Jodi Picoult. Retrieved from
http://www.jodipicoult.com/
Wands, D. (2011, Jan. 10) In Fantastic fiction. Retrieved from
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/jodi-picoult/
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