JODI PICOULT HAS AN ARMY of fans and so, inevitably, Nineteen Minutes will be put up for comparison with her other novels. Jane Donald, in her e-mail, said that the book lacked the “dynamic charge” of My Sister's Keeper, Picoult's novel about a girl who was conceived to help her sibling survive a rare form of leukaemia.

It may be that by tackling the topic of school shootings in Ninteen Minutes, Picoult necessarily had to alter her style slightly. She pared down the event to uncover the motivation of the young killer, but still she was dealing with a phenomenon that has hurt America and continues to do. The book is not just a ripping yarn; it is a social commentary.

Picoult is possibly guilty of trying to please everyone. She wanted to write a responsible book that alerted us all to the effects of bullying but she also wanted to produce a thrilling read. The finale provides a jolt but slightly undermines the more serious message that schools and colleges need to improve their capacity to stamp out the sort of cruel behaviour that left unchecked can create a murderer.

June 14, 2008

Alyson Rudd: The novel is about a school shooting but your characters steer clear of debate about America's gun culture. Why?

Jodi Picoult: Although it is easy to believe that stricter gun control laws would end violence, in the US it is believed by experts that this would not be the case. People who study school violence feel that a kid who wants a gun will get one by one method or another... Just recently a child was arrested for having all the materials to make a bomb in his home - and a journal detailing how he got it all. It is not so much the weapon used that needs to be addressed as the behaviour in schools that leads to bullying and so to kids feeling marginalised enough to resort to violence.

Did you feel nervous tackling an emotive topic that so obviously required you to be well informed?

No - all of my topics are chosen extremely carefully - and very often when I do the research I find myself in the company of people who have suffered greatly. In fact, hearing their stories only convinces me more that I am writing about the right things.

There are many extremely strong female characters. is that deliberate?

Yes. The characters of the mothers are meant to stand in contrast to each other. You have Alex - a very accomplished career woman who believes the best gift that she can give her child is the strength model she presents as a judge. Then you have Lacey, who believes the greatest gift she can give her child is to stay involved in their life and advocate for them. In my opinion, Lacey is the better mother and yet she ends up with a child who commits a horrific act. How can you, as a mother, love a child who has murdered others? How can you, as a mother, not continue to love that child? To me, Lacey's struggle with this makes her the emotional centre of the story.

The nature v nurture debate is a strong theme; have you altered your view on this issue as you have researched your books?

I don't think I have changed my opinion, but I may have it better supported. I think it is too simplistic to say that bad parenting causes a bad child and, by the same token, just as it takes “a village to raise a child”, it also takes a village to fail a child. In the research that I did with school shooters, the one constant was that these kids felt like they were not being respected by anyone. It doesn't matter if it is a teacher, a parent or a best friend, but having one person reach out to a child might be enough to build their self-esteem and prevent future school violence. However, I do believe that there is an emotional threshold, and for two kids bullied the same amount, one might let the teasing roll off his back and the other might internalise it, letting it grow until he becomes a child like Peter.

Bullies are often themselves victims, but in this novel is it fair to say they appear to be privileged and spoilt?

I don't think that is fair. I think it depends which bully you look at. A character like Josie turns into a bully - but you also see the origins of her victimisation. By the same token, Peter is the biggest bully of all the minute he picks up that gun. I don't think anyone would consider his childhood to be a privileged one.

There is a fine balancing act forcing readers to juggle which characters should have their sympathy; if you didn't make the reader think twice would you have failed?

Yes. The point of writing a book like this is to get popular kids to see that a joke to them may have lasting repercussions for someone else. And to make people see that even a killer like Peter has a grieving family with memories of a boy who was not a monster but a victim. You should never feel sympathy for Peter's act because violence is never the right answer... However, you should feel sympathy for what he has endured.

Some of your novels have been made into films; does this affect your writing?

No it doesn't. I don't know a single writer who writes with the intention of having a movie made of their book. It is a nice perk if it happens, particularly because in the US far more people watch television or go to the movies than read, and I have had fan letters from hundreds of people who learnt about my books by watching one of the films and who subsequently became diehard fans.

The Key Questions

Is this a brave novel?

How much sympathy did you feel for Peter?

What is the real turning point for Peter?

Was the twist a bonus or unnecessary?

May 31, 2008

I SEE Jodi Picoult everywhere. Her books are read on Tube trains and buses, in airport lounges and doctors' surgeries and, when I met her, she arrived in a taxi with her name painted on its doors. She must, I had assumed, churn out addictive page-turners, sacrificing quality for drama. Then I heard a radio interview with Picoult in which she eloquently defended Nineteen Minutes, a book about a high school shooting. And so I became one of those who read Picoult on the London Underground.

Nineteen minutes is how long it takes Peter Houghton to kill and maim students at his school before being discovered slumped in one of its bathrooms. Picoult attempts to explain why a teenage boy would want to kill his fellow students and teachers and so we meet Peter as a young child. He is sensitive, an easy target, and Nineteen Minutes is as much about bullying as it is about gun crime.

It is also about two mothers; Alex and Lacy. Alex is a judge, the pre-eminent figure in the small New Hampshire town, and Lacy is Peter's mother. Alex's daughter is found in the bathroom next to the body of her boyfriend. She is, understandably, traumatised.

The striking thing is Picoult's confidence. She takes a controversial topic and gallops with it, leaving the reader breathless and, crucially, better informed and full of questions.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Hodder, £7.99; 608pp Buy the book here

Download an exclusive podcast of Jodi Picoult discussing Nineteen Minutes here

PLUS we have ten copies of Nineteen Minutes to give away, to the first ten readers to e-mail us with their name and address.

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