Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart

Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart, Atria Books, 2007 (Book 15)

Jodi Picoult is an excellent writer. I have not read all fifteen of her books, but the ones I have read have been excellent. Gripping would be another descriptive phrase for her work. Her quick change of pace keeps the reader on his/her toes to the very end of the book.

Ms. Picoult has a serious interest in people in jail and what they go through. On her webpage she notes how she has visited Death Rows where she interviewed wardens and inmates. As you read her book you can see the first hand information coming through. The latest book is Change of Heart.

The following description is found on the author's webpage for Change of Heart.

"Shay Bourne - New Hampshire's first death row prisoner in 69 years – has only one last request: to donate his heart post-execution to the sister of his victim, who is looking for a transplant. Bourne says it's the only way he can redeem himself…but with lethal injection as his form of execution, this is medically impossible. Enter Father Michael Wright, a young local priest. Called in as Shay's spiritual advisor, he knows redemption has nothing to do with organ donation – and plans to convince Bourne. But then Bourne begins to perform miracles at the prison that are witnessed by officers, fellow inmates, and even Father Michael – and the media begins to call him a messiah. Could an unkempt, bipolar, convicted murderer be a savior? It seems highly unlikely, to the priest. Until he realizes that the things Shay says may not come from the Bible…but are, verbatim, from a gospel that the early Christian church rejected two thousand years ago…and that is still considered heresy."

A none too subtle agenda present in this book is an open attack on the death penalty. Ms. Picoult is among the many who feel that regardless of the crime, no one should be executed. The anti-hero in Change of Heart is a person of questionable mental stability who molested a little girl, killed the girl and her father, a policeman. The crime was considered so heinous that the jury awarded Shay Bourne, the convicted killer the death penalty. As the story progresses he has been on death row for 10 or more years waiting for the judicial process to work through its procedures. But now all avenues of hope are gone and Shay does not want to live any longer. If you want more of the details of the story, read the book. It will be worth your time.

I wish to deal with the hidden agendas found in the book. The first is the failure of organized religion. As usual the target is the Roman Catholic Church. I do not approve of the abuses the Roman Catholics have committed, but I question why they should be the media's whipping boy. We have a media frenzy like a pool full of piranhas attacking the Roman Catholics. Ms. Picoult shows the Church as insensitive and unconcerned about people like Shay Bourne except for one renegade priest. How he became a priest is an interesting part of the warp and woof of the book.

Likewise there is an attack on conservative Judaism where a Jewish rabbi is portrayed as being out of touch with reality because of his religion.

With a little less subtlety Ms. Picoult takes up the banner of Gnosticism using the same arguments as were used by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. At least Ms. Picoult did not make a claim at the beginning of her book that this was undeniable truth.

The church is portrayed as hiding or destroyed many of the gospels and other writings that did not agree with their position. At Nag Hammadi, a number of Gnostic gospels were found that date from AD 145, just 50 years after the Book of Revelation was finished. Of special interest is the Gospel of Thomas, which somehow Shay Bourne has incorporated into his life, but no one knows how. It is assumed that this gospel is just as accurate as the four traditional Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. One of the characters of the book is challenged because Shay Bourne is found expressing ideas out of the Gospel of Thomas. How could that be, since he never read the book? Is he the Messiah returned in the body of a common criminal condemned to die?

Ms. Picoult addresses the Jewish position on the Messiah. First, every age has a potential Messiah. Jesus was the potential Messiah for his age, but he failed to accomplish the task. What is the task? Simple. Elevate Israel to a world empire status whereby they will conquer the whole world in the fashion of David in the Old Testament. Certainly this attitude prevailed when Jesus walked the earth. John the Baptist was looking for this sort of Messiah. Jesus' own disciples were looking for this. Note James and John asking for positions of honor when Jesus came in his kingdom. Note Judas who betrayed him. I believe Judas betrayed Jesus because he believed that when Jesus was backed into a corner, he would strike with his God-power, strike the Jewish hierarchy and Romans alike and then the kingdom of which every one dreamed would come in.