I write about things that keep me up at night...

Bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult tells HANNAH STEPHENSON how death threats from social media trolls won’t stop her tackling uncomfortable subjects

SHE’S the queen of ‘ethical fiction’, having tackled subjects such as teenage suicide, controversial stem cell research, racism, prejudice and child abuse in her novels.

Her books have sold millions of copies and garnered a clutch of awards during her career, but Jodi Picoult’s writing hasn’t been well received by everyone, and has even prompted death threats on social media.

Jodi, 52, whose 2004 novel My Sister’s Keeper was adapted into a film starring Cameron Diaz, is determined to ignore all this and soldier on. She’s not worried that her books have made her a target for right wing opposition.

Her latest novel, A

Spark Of Light, which focuses on the abortion debate and reproductive rights, has already drawn the ire of Twitter trolls.

“I had death threats for Small Great Things (her 2016 novel which tackles race and prejudice) as well because white supremacists came after me and, surprise surprise, many of them are also pro-life,” says the American author, who studied creative writing at Princeton University and has a Masters from Harvard.

Trolls don’t scare her, she adds. “I’ve learned that extremists get on to social media to sow seeds of hate and discord by making it look like there are many of them coming after you, when in reality there are six or seven.

“What’s scarier to me are the pro-life extremists who camp outside the Deep South clinics, who have the licence plate numbers of the (abortion) doctors and follow them and post their home addresses online and encourage people to go and commit violence against them.”

A Spark Of Light opens during a hostage crisis at the only women’s health clinic providing legal abortions in Mississippi, a detail rooted in fact.

The eclectic mix of characters locked inside – after a gunman storms in opening fire, killing and injuring people before taking the rest hostage – are banded together by crisis. Told in reverse order, with each chapter moving back an hour – so there’s no ‘whodunnit’ element – the plot focuses on the characters inside the clinic and the dilemmas they each face.

It’s revealed that the gunman’s daughter visited the clinic for an abortion; the hostage negotiator learns that his 15-year-old daughter is in there seeking birth control; then there’s the African American travelling abortion provider who meets the needs of desperate women.

Like all Jodi’s novels, the ethical dilemmas are far reaching. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent?

The idea was sparked by a personal experience, the author explains.

“When I was in college, I had a very good friend who found out she was seven weeks pregnant, and she and her boyfriend made the decision to have an abortion. I supported her 100%,” Jodi recalls. “Years later, when I was pregnant with my third child, I was seven weeks pregnant as well and there was a complication. My doctor told me that the pregnancy might not make it and I was wrecked.

“I tried to understand how both those things could be true to me at the same time. I realised that where we stand on the spectrum of reproductive rights isn’t just a matter of whether we define ourselves as pro-life or pro-choice.

“An individual woman may change her mind over the course of her lifetime. What you believe when Jodi Picoult you’re a teenager is not what you believe when you’re in your 30s or in your 50s.

“In America, we legislate reproductive rights. Laws are meant to be black and white, but the situations in the lives of women that cause them to make these decisions to terminate are thousands of shades of grey.”

For research, she interviewed 151 women who had terminated a pregnancy. Of those, only one regretted that decision. Yet years later, the vast majority still hadn’t told anybody.

“It broke my heart because when women don’t tell their stories, the narrative that gets written about them is one of shame.”

She also spoke to pro-life advocates who, she says, were not religious zealots but felt a deep personal conviction. All were appalled by acts of violence committed in the name of unborn children. She shadowed Dr Willie Parker, an abortion provider and devout Christian in the Deep South who chose his work because of his faith, not in spite of it.

“I observed a five-week abortion, an eight-week abortion and a 15-week abortion,” she recalls. “The five-week and the eight-week abortions took less than three minutes and the products of conception look nothing that would suggest a dead baby.

“The 15-week abortion took seven minutes, was more complicated, and mixed among the tissue and products of conception were tiny, recognisable body parts, like a tiny hand, an elbow. Of course, that gives you pause. But I also interviewed the woman who had the abortion. She has three children under the age of four, could barely afford to feed them and she knew if she had a fourth child, she would not be able to feed them.

“So, is she a good mother or a bad mother? It really depends on which side you’re standing on.”

What drives Jodi to write about such uncomfortable subjects?

“I write about things that keep me up at night, things that I worry about as a woman, as an American and as a mother. There’s no shortage of them.”

Jodi herself had a blissfully normal childhood. She was born on Long Island, New York. Her mother was a nursery school teacher while her father worked on Wall Street.

After studying English and creative writing at Princeton, she had a succession of jobs while writing in her spare time.

Today, she writes in her attic at a large home in New Hampshire, which she shares with her husband Tim Van Leer. They have three grown-up children. She can switch off from fictional dilemmas when she ends her work day, she reflects.

“I have an amazing husband and four awesome dogs, and when I come downstairs there is such a clear line of demarcation between the very fraught situation I’ve been writing about and the life that I live.”