Nineteen Minutes
The startling and poignant story of the aftermath of a tragic high school shooting.
About the book
Sterling, NH is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens – until a student enters the local high school with an arsenal of guns and starts shooting, changing the lives of everyone inside and out. The daughter of the judge sitting on the case is the state’s best witness – but she can’t remember what happened in front of her own eyes. Or can she?
Featuring the return of some familiar characters (Jordan McAfee from The Pact and Salem Falls; Patrick Ducharme from Perfect Match), Nineteen Minutes asks what it means to be different in our society, who has the right to judge someone else, and whether a person is ever whom they seem to be.
Intricately textured and rich with psychological and social insight, Jodi Picoult's novels grab readers by the throat from page one and never let go. As emotionally charged as any she has written, Nineteen Minutes may be her most stunning work to date.
Reviews
'Bestseller Picoult takes on another contemporary hot-button issue in her brilliantly told new thriller…the author’s insights into her characters’ deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive.'
- Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
'Picoult makes us ponder the ambiguous relationships between love and lying, legality and morality; the strange ways repressed memories leak into the present.'
- Los Angeles Times
Extract
Download and read an extract from Nineteen Minutes.
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Q&A with Jodi Picoult about Nineteen Minutes
What drew you to the subject of school shootings
for the premise of a novel?
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?
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?
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 counsellor 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.
What facts did you uncover during your research that might
surprise readers whose knowledge of school shootings comes solely
from media coverage?
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 realised they’d been told the same thing.
What appealed to you about bringing back two characters from previous novels: defence lawyer Jordan McAfee and detective Patrick DuCharme? Why the romantic resolution for Patrick this time? 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 centre. As for Jordan — as soon as I realised 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.
Did you have the surprise ending in mind when you began writing Nineteen Minutes, or did it evolve later in the process?
As with all my books, I knew the ending before I wrote the first word.
You once remarked about your previous novel, My Sister’s Keeper,
that “there are so many shades of grey in real life.” How might this
statement also apply to Nineteen Minutes?
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
victimised 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 recognise — 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 grey area to wallow in with
your book group!
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?
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.
