My Sister’s Keeper
By Jodi Picoult
“In my first memory, I am three years old and I am trying to kill my sister.”
And so the story of the Fitzgerald family begins. With that first sentence I was immediately drawn into this spellbinding book because I wanted to know what mystery would cause such a young child to have that particular moment as a first memory.
The reasons are explained very early on in the story, told primarily by Anna, a 13-year-old girl. She is the youngest of three children and the middle child, Kate, has lived with leukemia for all but two years of her young life. It was for this reason, as Anna tells us, that she was born: to be a donor match for her dying sister.
Brian and Sarah are the parents in this tortured story, parents who are have struggled for 14 years to bear the burden of having a child with a life-threatening disease. We feel their distress and we can only imagine what steps we would take ourselves if put in their shoes.
Jesse is the eldest and only son who was all but forgotten as his parents became more and more overwhelmed with Kate’s illness. Left to fend for himself at a very young age, Jesse went out of his way to get the attention of his parents, usually by acting out. You know the saying about kids longing for attention, even if it’s negative? Well, that is the textbook definition of who Jesse is.
Kate is the sympathetic victim who was given a raw deal and only knows life as a chemo patient. She knows the names of the nurses at the hospital when she should be riding her bike with friends. But she is close with her sister, has a sense of humor, and yearns to live a “normal” life.
As the story progresses we see the dysfunction of the Fitzgerald family: Brian hasn’t told his firemen brothers about his sick daughter; Sarah is a stay-at-home mom who flinches each time Kate sneezes; Jesse is the mysterious figure who lives in the apartment above the garage; and Kate and Anna are forever joined because of the miracle of modern medicine.
The crux of the story is when Anna files a lawsuit against her parents for medical emancipation. Basically, she is tired of being poked and prodded all for her sister’s sake and she is expected to donate an organ to her sister, even though her parents have never asked her permission to do so. She hires her own lawyer and a court guardian is assigned to her case to determine if the case should go to trial.
Each character in this novel is complex; there are two sides to every story and each of these characters have many reasons for their actions. I struggled most with liking Sarah, the mother, because on the one hand all she cared about was saving Kate’s life, almost at the expense of her other children. Her character brings up the complicated question of just how far would you go to save your child’s life? It’s a tough one to answer and will leave you thinking for many days and nights.
This is a heart-wrenching book, especially the ending, but leaves the reader with many deep, philosophical questions of how they would handle this same situation. It will resonate most with mothers and makes me so grateful for all that is good in life.
Christina Lemmey is the mom behind the blog, http://survivingathome.com where she shares tips and tricks for balancing motherhood, working from home, and marriage.
