The Pi-Cult

» The Official Newsletter for Fans of Jodi Picoult

HOT OFF THE PRESSES

Well, it’s 2008…and that means I’m gearing up for the publication season.  It gets kicked off this Tuesday with the paperback version of NINETEEN MINUTES.  If you haven’t had a chance to read it, I hope you’ll grab a copy…and if you HAVE, consider asking your local high school to read it with their students.  Even a year after it’s debut, I still think it’s one of the most important conversations we need to have with our kids.

WHAT’S NEW

For those of you counting down the hardcover, it’s only a month away.  CHANGE OF HEART arrives on March 4.  I’ll be sending you out a link to a video trailer that features the new novel in a few weeks…and the same week it’s published, you can expect a revamped website at www.jodipicoult.com, with new podcasts and photos and information for book clubs interested in reading CHANGE OF HEART. 

Need some incentive?  Here’s a teaser about the plot: 

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.
Change Of Heart looks at the nature of organized religion and belief, and takes the reader behind the closely drawn curtains of America’s death penalty. Featuring the return of Ian Fletcher from Keeping Faith, it also asks whether religion and politics truly are separate in this country, or inextricably tangled. Does religion make us more tolerant, or less? Do we believe what we do because it’s right? Or because it’s too frightening to admit that we may not have the answers?
Still need to be convinced?  Here are a few advance reviews of CHANGE OF HEART:
“Picoult presents her fifteenth shrewd and dynamic novel, a compulsively readable saga and dramatic critique of capital punishment. She also seems determined to give the Da Vinci Code a run for its money…Laced with intriguing musings on the Gnostic Gospels, Picoult's bold story of loss, justice, redemption and faith reminds us how tragically truth can be concealed and denied.”
—Booklist
“Another ripped-from-the-zeitgeist winner.  Picoult moves the story along with lively debates about prisoner rights and religion, while plumbing the depths of mother-daughter relationships and examining the literal and metaphorical meanings of having heart…An impressive book.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“[A] blockbuster-to-be… breathless momentum.”
—Kirkus Reviews

MOVIE NEWS

Just got back from the set of THE TENTH CIRCLE in Halifax, and if the performances I witnessed were any indication, this is going to be a terrific TV movie.  Lifetime says it’s airing in June and I’ll get more information posted when I know it. 
Here’s a pic from the set – me and the cast (Ron Eldard, Kelly Preston, and Brittany Robertson):

WHERE I’VE BEEN

I’ve only been home for three days the whole month of January.  Most of the time, I’ve been out doing research for the 2010 book.  The hands-down winner has been my visit to RI, where I got to shadow a great female crime scene investigator.  Not only am I a pro now at testing for presumptive semen or blood…I got to watch a whole autopsy, which was totally fascinating.  I bet you didn’t know that the very first step the medical examiner takes is to take a massively large syringe and stick it into the eyeball, to draw out the vitreous fluid…which is tested in a toxicology lab and represents whatever was in the person’s system at the time of death.  And then there’s the sound the brain makes when it’s taken out of the skull to be weighed…  :-)

I hope you’re all as excited about Change of Heart as I am, and I look forward to hearing from you in the next few months about it!

Best,
Jodi

Keep reading!
Jodi

©  2008 Jodi Picoult : Hanover, New Hampshire   |   www.jodipicoult.com
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