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I was a little tired when I read the first section, and found it a tad confusing as there are so many characters. It opens by describing ‘The Center’, which, it’s clear, is one of the last remaining clinics offering abortion in the state of Mississippi. As with all Picoult’s novels, this is set in the United States. It was originally published in 2018.
We then meet Wren, who is fifteen and doesn’t want to die. Not that she’s undergoing an abortion - as we soon learn, she’s at the clinic to get hold of contraceptive pills. And we also learn that she’s seen an older woman called Olive die, and that she’s worried that her aunt Bex is already dead. She wishes she had talked to her father. And she sees a gun pointed at her…
The next character we meet is George, the man with the gun. We’re told that he had a very traumatic childhood. He wanted to be a better person than his father, but turned out to be a bad husband, and now thinks that, by taking hostages in this clinic, he is being a good father. It’s evident that he believes his daughter had an abortion, and that he’s justified in taking revenge.
Then we meet Hugh, a police negotiator who is on the phone to George. And Hugh is Wren’s father. He should have handed over to someone else, but refuses to do so. He would do anything for his daughter. And apparently they have reached some kind of agreement, since the door opens, and out walk two of the hostages: Janine and Joy. Joy has had surgery that morning, but Janine is an undercover pro-life protestor.
And then - after much digression - we meet Izzy, a nurse who is pregnant and whose fiancé comes to find her. Izzy grew up in serious poverty and was then fostered by four different families, some of them quite abusive. So she finds it hard to deal with the obvious wealth and privilege that she’s being introduced to by the man who loves her.
And there’s Dr Louie, who works at the abortion clinic. Louie has evidently been seriously injured, and is worried that he might lose his leg. He’s also a devout Catholic who believes that life begins at conception, yet he also believes in compassion to women who find themselves pregnant but, for whatever reason, don’t feel able to keep the baby. I would have found Louie unbelievable, yet apparently - as the author states at the end - he is based quite strongly on a real-life doctor with similar principles.
Oh, and there’s Beth, a 17-year-old girl in hospital a few hours away, charged with manslaughter because she took some abortion tablets. It’s not entirely clear how she fits into the rest of the story until a lot later in the book, although the legal aspects add to the informational/educational nature of it.
I kept reading, wondering where all this was going, and then suddenly it seemed as if the action had moved back, without any indication of a flashback. At least, I thought that until I reached a section break, and noticed that it had a time-stamp above it. I returned to the beginning, and discovered that each section is an hour apart… but in reverse order. So at 5pm we know that four of the hostages are safe, but that Wren is still being held. At 4pm they are still all in the centre, with Hugh desperately trying to negotiate with George. And as the day moves earlier and earlier, we learn more about why each individual is there, with a lot of back story.
It’s quite a clever idea, although it didn’t really work for me. That’s partly because none of the characters really came alive for me, other than, perhaps, Wren. I also liked Izzy, who is a dedicated nurse and does all she can to assist with every injury; it’s clear that she saves the lives of both Bex and Louie, at risk to her own. And since I started to appreciate Wren and the good relationship she has with her father, I wanted to know what the outcome was going to be. Thankfully there’s a brief epilogue, labelled 6pm, which tidies up that part of the story.
On the whole I think it gives a well-balanced look into the minds of those who are ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’. I have my own opinion about this issue, not relevant to this review. But I am always interested to read books that get into the minds of people who think otherwise, and Jodi Picoult does a good job here, showing the pros and cons of different people’s decisions, and dispelling some of the myths.
Of course nobody brings up the irony of someone ‘pro life’ who is taking other people’s lives, or the widespread availability of guns in the United States. But the point is certainly made - mainly through Izzy - that there aren’t always people willing and able to adopt unwanted children, and that better health and social care would be the best way to keep people out of these clinics. As well as easier access to contraception: I was astounded to discover (and I assume it’s true) that some of the pro-life activists are also against artificial contraception.
There are parts of the book that were quite gory, dealing with some of the injuries and treatment, and also a very detailed description of an abortion, which I skimmed over quickly. And the enormous amount of back story for everyone was not always relevant or even interesting. There are a couple of surprises in the final chapter (the earliest time, that is, not the epilogue) which I hadn’t seen coming, but by the time I reached the end of the book, I didn’t much care. And we never do discover what happens to Beth, who remains chained to her bed in the hospital.
It was undoubtedly well-written and well-researched, and hopefully educational for those who believe in abortion myths, or have not been able to understand viewpoints other than their own. But it was also rather sordid, and not at all uplifting or inspiring. I wouldn’t really recommend this, and doubt if I will ever want to read it again.
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