Note: this critique is of the book My Sister’s Keeper, although I refer to the movie. The movie mostly follows the book until the final court scene, whereupon it goes off in two different directions. Discussion on both book and movie are welcome. Spoilers beware. (IMHO, it’s not worth reading, anyway.)
Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper follows the life of the Fitzgerald family. Older sister Kate (played in the movie by Sofia Vassilieva from TV’s Medium) is chronically ill, suffering from leukemia-related illnesses since she was a young child. Her parents, Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian, concieved younger sister Anna (Abigail Breslin) as a genetically-engineered baby to be the perfect match for Kate as a blood and bone-marrow donor. For thirteen years. Anna has gone along with it, but when her parents ask for a kidney, she gets herself a lawyer and sues for medical emancipation; the right over her own body.
Now, I’m from Western Australia, where we have laws against both genetically-engineered babies and live transplants, so I was predisposed against the so-called ethics that Picoult raised in the books. To me, bringing a child into the world knowing they will have a chronically ill older sibling and that they were conceived for spare parts seems abhorrent, if understandable from a desperate parent’s perspective. And the risks that go along with being a live donor? The reason we don’t have it (though other Australian states do). I’m certainly interested in what people outside WA think.
Anyway, when Anna sues for emancipation, Sara hits the roof, calling Anna a selfish bitch and so on. Even when the court forbids Sara from speaking to Anna about to trial, she still tries and convinces Anna to save her sister’s life. Now, I’d hazard a guess that Picoult’s intention was to portray Sara as so desperate to use one daughter’s life to save the other that she convinces herself she’ll get two healthy daughters out of it – ignoring any risks to Anna’s health, in both short- and long-term, which may not even benefit Kate – but for me, she just came across as a woman who loves Kate first and foremost and sees Anna as a spare-parts factory. She sees nothing wrong with holding her toddler daughter down to get bone marrow drawn while her daughter kicks and screams; Anna’s constant skipping of school because of recovering from one procedure or another is treated as collateral damage to Kate’s well-being.
And the thing is, like many of Picoult’s novels, MSK often hits some sadly realistic notes. The Fitzgerald family haven’t been living for the last fifteen years so much as stuck on survival mode, ricocheting from one health crisis to another. The family is broke from constantly having to pay for medical treatments and procedures. Kate’s been miserable for as long as she can remember. Older son Jesse is in trouble at school and has taken to petty arson out of neglect. Anna can’t go to camp and pursue her own interests in case Kate gets sick and needs her sister’s blood. I have no idea what it would be like to be living with someone chronically ill, but Picoult’s account feels jarringly realistic; every bit of money and happiness the family had has gone into a black hole of Kate’s illness.
And I found it incredibly unrealistic that the ethics board of a major suburban hospital thought nothing wrong with a thirteen-year-old giving a kidney. The compromised life at thirteen? I only know no (respectable) Australian surgeon would OK those circumstances, but again, I am interested in what people from other countries have to say.
But what keeps coming back to me is Sara’s determination to have Anna donate a kidney. She knows the risks, she just doesn’t seem to care. I know it must suck to be in that position and I hope I never will be in a position to need one child to give life to the other and hope like hell it doesn’t kill them both, but Sara constantly comes across as caring far more about Kate then Anna.
In the final court scene, it’s revealed that Kate was tired of living this half-life and wanted to die, and didn’t want Anna’s health to be compromised along with it. She engineered for Anna to sue for emancipation, because she didn’t want to admit to their mum that she wanted to give up. Whatever Picoult intended, my response was ‘so, now BOTH girls are too scared to tell her what they want?’
And this is where the book and film diverge. In the film, Kate dies, and Anna, Jesse, Sara and Brian go on as best they can. I thought that was the more realistic of the two. In the book, on the way home from the court decision that says she doesn’t have to give a kidney, Anna and her lawyer are in a car crash that results in Anna’s death, and guess what? Kate gets the kidney!!! Yay! I don’t know what Picoult meant to say, but my interpretation was ‘that’s what you get for banking one daughter’s health against the other, thinking they will both be OK, you selfish woman’.
I could never feel for Sara, and I think that’s where Picoult went wrong. Diaz brings something more human and desperate to Sara, but the book’s Sara just comes across as as a single-minded person who doesn’t give a crap who’s she’s hurting so long as she gets her (idealistic) way.
I think Picoult has a lot of talent as a writer (Nineteen Minutes, House Rules). But I also think she often takes on an emotive issue and then gets lost in exploring them and reduces her original idea to something far less great than it could have been. That feels like the case here with My Sister’s Keeper.
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Or developed artificial organs. Who doesn’t want to be a cyborg?
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
I have to admit, this discussion has put me off Picault’s writing even more than I was before. Previously I’d only read her abysmal run on Wonder Woman, which featured things like Diana, who has been in the larger world for a decade and was granted supernatural wisdom by Athena, unable to figure out things like gas pumps.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
Of course Doctors treat kids when they need shots or are put in the hospital ect. But when a kid says he/she doesn’t want a treatment and shows that he/she comprehends what this means then nobody can force them. Of course in reality it’s probably really had most of the time for children to prove to adults that they are able to make informed decisions…
M.C.(Quote) (Reply)
Last I checked we don’t do live transplants, although I believe there’s quite a push for it. There was a case about six months agol, a woman called Claire Murray who had already had one failed liver transplant and for that reason who not allowed back on the transplant list. Her sister agreed to donate, but they had to go to, I believe, Singapore to get it done. I don’t know if there was a specific rulling on Murray’s case, but that left me with the impression that the laws regarding live donation were still in place.
It’s funny you mention those states, because WA, Tas and Qld are considered the most conservative states and NSW and Victoria the more liberal. I live in a blue-ribbon liberal seat and have lived there most of my life so I guess that influences my opinion that WA is quite conservative. Also grew up in quite a consevrative Catholic family (part of why I live in a Liberal seat – no-one in the family wants a Labour rep!) Ironically, I lived in Darwin until I was seven, and the territories in general have more liberal laws because they’re dictated by the national government, not a state government. (Among other things, porn and fireworks are freely available there).
Scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
Patrick, I thought Nineteen Minutes was really good – felt she captured the culture of bullying and how the culture of people denying that *their* kid can possibly be anything but an angel just perpetuates the bullying, and that we have to take a far harder line on kids making other kids lives miserable if we *really* want to stop Colombine-type situations. It’s the main reason I keep reading her stuff (believe I’ve read everything now) – keep hoping there’s another NM around. But then, NM was one of the first books of hers I read, so maybe after six months of criticising the crap out of what is largely rubbish with a few (wasted) inspired idea, if I went back to it, it probably wouldn’t be as good as I remembered.
I was thinking about one of her most recent books, Handle With Care, which is also pretty bad – might write about that next.
Scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
Ah, I’d forgotten about Claire Murray. So I did a bit more checking and, according to the articles about it at the time, there’s no live liver transplant unit in Australia, so it seems to be a lack of equipment etc. rather than just the laws.
We definitely do live kidney donations in WA. I found this page (http://www.wacountry.health.wa.gov.au/default.asp?documentid=512) from the WA department of health, which says “WACHS will reimburse reasonable travel expenses incurred by suitable donors travelling to Perth for kidney donation assessment, retrieval and one-post operative visit”. So there’s no doubt that live kidney donations are legal, but it may be a bit more complicated with other organs.
Well, my impression was we’re less conservative than Tas or Qld, more probably on a par with SA, but it’s all very subjective, and I suppose not particularly productive speculating.
On the other hand I am completely bewildered by WA’s insistence in the last decade or so of voting Lib/Nat in federal elections, but given there’s no such trend in State elections, it seems to be more complicated than straight conservatism. To be entirely anecdotal about it, my pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, feminist etc. mother nevertheless consistently votes Liberal, and if I can’t even understand her, what chance have I got with the rest of the state!?
Dana(Quote) (Reply)
Dana, where abouts do you live? If in perth N/S/E/W will do, and otherwise, a vauge description of state will do. It’s just I’ve been on this site for over five years and I’ve never come across a fellow West Australian so I’m curious.
If it makes you feel better, my pro-choice, pro-gay marraige sister voted Family First not knowing who they were – I have been very frustrated by people’s general ignorance that’s been displayed in this election.
If they were OK with live donorship, then why not do the Murray surgery here? Seems the best option to me.
scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
And yes, liver transplants tend to be the least contentious of organ donations, as the liver can grow back. Kidneys – which is the point of this story – less so.
scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
Well, from what I could gather, apparently there weren’t the facilities for live liver donations anywhere in Australia. Or possibly the same reason the New Zealanders allegedly gave – that their criteria for live liver donation were the same as all transplants and the drug addiction and it being her second transplant disqualified her. However, I got all this just from media reports from when it happened, so take with a pinch of salt. Oddly, in one of the government press releases from a few years ago, they were boasting that doctors at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had just performed Australia’s first live liver transplant, which doesn’t fit with the Murray case, so I didn’t include it earlier. Who knows, but it doesn’t seem to be illegal, just difficult. And live kidney transplants are both legal and reasonably commonly performed. So if they’re more contentious than live liver transplants, the whole thing’s very weird.
East – the Perth electorate to be a bit more specific.
Dana(Quote) (Reply)
Sorry, wouldn’t let me nestle any lower. Anyway, I’m from the north-west suburbs of Perth myself and it’s good to have another Perthite on board. I’ve never known a fellow West Aussie, let alone Pethite, so I’m kind of excited
scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
*g* Nice to meet you too!
Dana(Quote) (Reply)
Well, after reading some of these comments, I feel a lot better! I just finished reading MSK the other day, and I was GREATLY bothered by the ending. I found myself crying as though I knew Anna, and I was extremely moved by the book itself. As far as the comments on Picoults writing, although I have not read any of her other books, I have to say she is a very skilled writer! I found myself forming an emotional connection with the characters, and they were all very well developed. As far as my feelings on Sarah, I am torn. As much as I want to see her as the villian of the story, I find the portrayal of her to be very realistic. I can’t bring myself to villianize her because I honestly believe that I might have made the same mistakes had I been put in the same position! I believe she loved Anna and Kate equally, but the severity of Kate’s sickness blinded Sarah to the needs of Anna. She simply wanted to have BOTH her daughters! As a mother, how could you possibly choose between your daughters? If there was even the SLIGHTEST possibility that an opportunity to save on existed, wouldn’t you jump to take it? Although she may not have thought it all the way through, Anna was the familiy’s ROCK through out the story. Maybe, in Sarah’s mind, Anna was always going to be there! She never accepted the possibility that Anna could be hurt/lost…It was always Kate that had to be worried about! This is also key to the ending of the story. The purpose of Anna dying was not to punish Sarah, but to remind us all to NEVER take ANYONE for granted! Sarah, Brian, Kate, and Jesse took for granted that Anna would be there to save the day. She was the ROCK, and I believe Picoult had Anna killed to shatter this belief, as well as to bring a broken family back together. Had Kate died because Anna kept her kidney, no matter how much time had passed, there would always be the resounding “what if” question within the family, and the family would have remained broken. Anna had to die in order to fix what Sarah had unknowingly broken. Anna was the ultimate sacrifice. Sad, but true! In life, it takes TRUE TRADGEDY to open peopes eyes, and Kate’s death, although sad, wouldn’t have been a tradgedy because everyone saw it coming. They were waiting on it.
Nia(Quote) (Reply)
See, Nia, I got the impression that Picoult *meant* for Sara to love each daughter equally, but her love for Ana was overshadowed by her concern for Sara, and she was so determined to believe that she could have both daughters happy and healthy that she ignored any evidence to the contrary. But how Sara was *meant* to be and how she actually came across to me were two very different things. For me, Sara was more a parent who valued one child way over the other.
Possibly if MSK was a one-off aberration, it wouldn’t bother me so much. But Picoult has a history of taking on contentious issues and then dropping the ball over a bunch of ugly stereotypes and behaviour. Handle With Care is the only one that comes to mind right now, but she seems to like her ‘over-protective mum gets hers in the form of dead kid’ trope.
scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
← Previous Comments