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Hi everyone!

Do you know what today is? NINETEEN days till the publication of Nineteen Minutes! To celebrate (and to whet your appetite) here’s a question-and-answer session about the book…

Q & A  About Nineteen Minutes

Q: What drew you to the subject of school shootings for the premise of a novel?

A: As a mom of three, I’ve seen my own children struggle with fitting in, and being bullied. It was listening to their experiences, and my own frustrations, that led me to consider the topic. I also kept thinking about how it’s not just in high school where we have this public persona that might be different from what we truly feel inside…everyone wonders if they’re good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, no matter how old they are. It’s an archetypical moral dilemma: do you act like yourself, and risk becoming an outcast? Or do you pretend to be someone you’re not, and hope no one finds out you’re faking?

Q: How did you go about conducting research for Nineteen Minutes? Given the heart wrenching and emotional topic of the book, in what ways was the research process more challenging than for your previous novels?

A: This book was VERY hard to research. I actually began through my longtime legal research helper, who had a colleague that had worked in the FBI and put me in touch with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office – the people who investigated the Columbine shootings. I spoke with them, and they sent me DVDs and material that had never been made available to the public, which helped a bit to get into the mindset of the shooters. The next contact I made was with a woman who served as a grief counselor to the families who lost children at Columbine. However, I really wanted to talk to a school shooting survivor…and yet I didn’t want to cause anyone undue pain by bringing up what will always be a difficult subject. I was actually in Minneapolis, doing a reading, when the Red Lake shootings occurred. It was the most surreal feeling: there I was in a hotel, writing a scene in the book, and on the TV next to me was a reporter saying exactly what I was typing into my fiction. I went to the bookstore event that night and was telling folks about the way my two worlds had collided…and a woman came up to me afterward. She knew someone who’d survived the Rocori shootings in MN, and was willing to put me in touch with her. Through that connection, I not only spoke with two teachers who shared with me their story of the shooting…but also a young man whose friend died that day. It was his commentary that shook me the most – as a writer and a parent – and that became the most important research I did for this book.

Q: What facts did you uncover during your research that might surprise readers whose knowledge of school shootings comes solely from media coverage?

A: Although the media is quick to list the “aberrant” characteristics of a school shooter, the truth is that they fit all teens at some point in their adolescence! Or in other words – these kids who resort to violence are not all that different from the one living upstairs in your own house, most likely – as scary as that is to imagine. Two other facts that surprised me: for many of these shooters, there is the thinnest line between suicide and homicide. They go to the school planning to kill themselves and decide at the last minute to shoot others too. And that, psychologically, a single act of childhood bullying is as scarring emotionally as a single act of sexual abuse. Historically, one of the most upsetting things I learned was that after Columbine, more than one family was told that their child was the first to be killed. It was theoretically supposed to offer them comfort (“my child went first, and didn’t suffer”) but backfired when several families realized they’d been told the same thing.

Q: What appealed to you about bringing back two characters from previous novels: defense lawyer Jordan McAfee and detective Patrick DuCharme? Why the romantic resolution for Patrick this time?

A: Okay, I’m just going to admit it to the world: I have a crush on Patrick DuCharme. And of course, he DIDN’T get the girl at the end of Perfect Match. So I really wanted him to star in another story, where he was front and center. As for Jordan – as soon as I realized that I had a murder trial in New Hampshire, I started thinking of who might defend Peter. And Jordan happened to be free…! It’s always great fun to bring a character back, because you get to catch up on his/her life; and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel – you already know how he speaks, acts, thinks.

Q: Did you have the surprise ending in mind when you began writing Nineteen Minutes, or did it evolve later in the process?

A: As with all my books, I knew the ending before I wrote the first word.

Q: You once remarked about your previous novel, My Sister’s Keeper, that “there are so many shades of gray in real life.” How might this statement also apply to Nineteen Minutes?

A: It’s funny you should compare Nineteen Minutes to My Sister's Keeper because I see them as very similar books – they are both very emotional, very gut-wrenching, and they’re situations that every parent dreads. And like the moral and ethical complications of MSK, you have a kid in Nineteen Minutes who does something that, on the surface, is absolutely devastating and destructive and will end the lives of others. But – given what these characters have endured – can you blame them? Do I condone school shootings? Absolutely not. But I can understand why a child who’s been victimized might feel like he’s justified in fighting back. I also think it’s fascinating to look at how two good parents might find themselves with a child they do not recognize – a child who does something they can’t swallow. Do you stop loving your son just because he’s done something horrible? And if you don’t, do you start hating yourself? There are so many questions raised by Nineteen Minutes – it’s one big gray area to wallow in with your book group!

Q: In the Acknowledgements section, you write: “To the thousands of kids out there who are a little bit different, a little bit scared, a little bit unpopular: this one’s for you.” What might readers, particularly younger readers, take from this book and apply to their own lives?

A: If I could say one thing to the legions of teens out there who wake up every morning and wish they didn’t have to go to school, it would be this – and I’m saying it as both a mom and a writer: Stay the course. You WILL find someone like you; you WILL fit in one day. And know that even the cool kids, the popular kids, worry that someone will find out their secret: that they worry about fitting in, just like you do.

• View the Nineteen Minutes Trailer

What’s New

There’s another podcast to listen to – Going Global.

• Listen to the Going Global podcast

Learn about the difference between publishing in the US and publishing in the rest of the world – it might shock you!

• Learn more about Nineteen Minutes…

Come Meet Me!

My American tour schedule for Nineteen Minutes is posted below. Check back on the website for upcoming UK dates, from April 20-May 13!

What’s Next?

Most of you know that the 2008 book, Change of Heart, is finished. But I’m already working on the one for 2009 – it’s about a wrongful birth suit: when a parent sues an OB for not being told earlier in the pregnancy that a child was going to be severely impaired. Most parents who sue for wrongful birth love their kids very much…but want to give them the best lives possible, which is very expensive given the level of physical impairment. However, instigating this kind of lawsuit means getting up in front of a jury and saying that if you’d known your child was going to be this handicapped, you would never have had the baby. Not only is that emotionally devastating…but it usually creates a lawsuit that circles back to questions of abortion rights, and who gets to decide what sort of life is or isn’t worth living – at which point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How handicapped is TOO handicapped? As you can see, lots of thorny moral and ethical questions in this one – which is why I’m loving it! In the book I’ll be writing, the OB and the mom will be best friends…until the child is born with osteogenesis imperfecta Type III, a very severe form of brittle bone disease. These are children who, literally, will have hundreds of breaks over the course of a lifetime; you can lift up your infant and break her back; she can roll over and break her ribs. Thematically, I want to talk about the things that break apart in times of stress: bones, friendships, families.

2007 Tour Schedule

Keep reading!
Jodi

©  2007 Jodi Picoult : Hanover, New Hampshire   |   www.jodipicoult.com
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