Picture Perfect
Authors: Jodi Picoult
RAISE FOR
J
ODI
P
ICOULT
:
“Beginning with her first bookâ¦Picoult has refused to sweat the small stuff. She's concerned with love and truth, the blurry boundary lines implied by both. She forces the reader to look, however uncomfortable the experience might be, at complacent people who discover, much too late, the sad disparity between what they thought they knew and what they know now.”
â
Orlando Sentinel Tribune
“Picoult makes her characters real as reality.”
â
Concord Monitor
“Picoult's novels never disappoint the reader.”
âAnn Hood,
The Sunday Journal
(Providence, RI)
Songs of the Humpback Whale
“A memorable and entertaining ride, [rendered] with great skill and rich detail.”
â
San Francisco Chronicle
“This powerful and affecting novel demonstrates that there are as many truths to a story as there are people to tell it.”
â
Publishers Weekly
“A structural tour-de-forceâ¦Picoult has the true storyteller's ability to evoke a world on the page and pull the reader into it.”
â
The Women's Review of Books
“Jodi Picoult is a more convincing argument for reincarnation than anything Shirley MacLaine has ever written: How could a 26-year-old first novelist have so much knowledge of marriage, of mothering a teenager, of separation and reconciliation, unless she's been down this road before in another guise? Picoult's imagination is formidable.”
â
Los Angeles Times Book Review
“In the surrealistically twinkling hegira sections of this storyâ¦Jodi Picoult spreads her wings and catches an updraft.”
â
The New York Times Book Review
Harvesting the Heart
“Jodi Picoult explores the fragile ground of ambivalent motherhood in her lush second novel. This story belongs toâ¦the lucky reader.”
â
The New York Times Book Review
“Reminiscent of Sue Miller's
The Good Mother
, with a voice all its own.”
â
Chicago Tribune
“Picoult weaves a beautiful tale from threads of sympathetic characters into a pattern told from two points of view, then fringes it with suspense and drama.”
â
The Charlotte Observer
“A brilliant, moving examination of motherhood, brimming with detail and emotion.”
â
Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Picoult's depiction of families and their relationships over time is rich and accurateâ¦
Harvesting the Heart
[is] a moving portrayal of the difficulties of marriage and parenthood.”
â
The Orlando Sentinel
“Picoult brings her considerable talents to this contemporary story of a young woman in search of her identityâ¦Told in flashbacks, this is a realistic story of childhood and adolescence, the demands of motherhood, the hard paths of personal growth and the generosity of spirit required by love. Picoult's imagery is startling and brilliant; her characters move credibly through this affecting drama.”
â
Publishers Weekly
Mercy
Named one of the top seven novels of 1996 by
Glamour
magazine
“A quietly powerful book that examines the boundaries of love and loyalty, courage and forgivenessâ¦Picoult writes with a fine touch, a sharp eye for detail and a firm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of human relationships.”
â
The Boston Globe
“I would be surprised if anyone who reads the first 20 pages of
Mercy
could put it aside again. This is the Real Thing, a novel about plausible people and important ideas told with riveting cinematic clarity.”
â
Portland Oregonian
“An inspired meditation on love.”
â
Publishers Weekly
“A graceful stylist, Picoult entertains her readers not only with feel-good storytelling and irresistible characters but with consideration of such serious moral dilemmas as euthanasia and forgiveness.”
â
Booklist
The Pact
“Engrossingâ¦
The Pact
is compelling reading, right up to the stunning courtroom conclusion. Bottom line: Picoult's deft touch makes this her breakout novel.”
â
People
“Picoult is a writer of high energy and conviction who has, in her fifth novel, brought to life a cast of subtly drawn characters caught up in a tragedy as timeless and resonant as those of the Greeks or Shakespeareâ¦this psychologically shrewd tale is as suspenseful as any best-selling legal thrillerâ¦she forges a finely honed, commanding, and cathartic drama.”
â
Booklist
“The novelist displays an almost uncanny ability to enter the skins of her troubled young protagonists.”
â
The New York Times
“Jodi Picoult's fifth novel,
The Pact
, is so good that we can't put it downâ¦It is suspenseful, intelligently written, topical.”
â
Detroit Free Press
Keeping Faith
“Fans of Picoult's fluent and absorbing storytelling will welcome her new novel, which like
Harvesting the Heart
, explores family dynamics and the intricacies of motherhood, and concludes, as did
The Pact
, with tense courtroom dramaâ¦These characters' many triumphant transformations are Picoult's triumphs as well.”
â
Publishers Weekly
“Picoult offers a perfectly pitched take on the great mysteries of the heart. Her best yet.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
“Addictively readable.”
â
Entertainment Weekly
“Makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction.”
â
USA Today
Plain Truth
“A suspenseful, richly layered dramaâ¦From the very start, Picoult draws readers inâ¦impressiveâ¦Picoult's seventh novel never loses its grip. The research is convincing, the plotting taut, the scenes wonderfully vividâ¦[An] absorbing, multidimensional portrait of an Amish clanâ¦a hummer of a tale.”
â
People
“A
Witness
-meets-
Agnes of God
courtroom thrillerâ¦both absorbing and affecting.”
â
Entertainment Weekly
“Appealing, suspensefulâ¦Reads like a cross between the Harrison Ford movie
Witness
and Scott Turow's novel
Presumed Innocent
, with a dose of television's
The Practice
thrown in to spice up the legal dilemmas.”
â
Arizona Republic
Salem Falls
A Featured Selection of The Literary Guild®
“Picoult's description of the legal process is excellent, especially her intriguing and thorough explanation of DNA evidence, and the narrative is impressively complicated, with a couple of eye-opening surprisesâ¦Colorful.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
J
ODI
P
ICOULT
BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 1995 by Jodi Picoult.
Cover photography by Millenium/PictureArts.
Cover design by Monica Benalcazar.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Picoult, Jodi, 1966â
Picture perfect / Jodi Picoult.
p. cm.
ISBN: 1-101-14713-X
     1. Women anthropologistsâFiction. 2. Marital conflictâFiction. 3. Married peopleâFiction. 4. CaliforniaâFiction. 5. ActorsâFiction. I. Title.
PS3566.I372 P49 2002
2002020867
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people made the research of this book possible: Arlene Stevens, C.S.W., and Executive Director of the
Response
hotline of Suffolk County, New York; Brenda Franklin of Yorktown Productions; Doug Ornstein, former A.D. at Warner Brothers; Keith Willis; Sally Smith; Ina Gravitz; Dr. James Umlas; Dr. Richard Stone; and Victor A. Douville, Chair of Lakota Studies at Sinte Gleska University. For a variety of services rendered, my gratitude also goes to Tim van Leer, Jon Picoult, Jane and Myron Picoult, Kathleen Desmond, Cindy Lao Gitter, Mary Morris, Laura Gross, and Laura Yorke. And finally, a very special thanks to Jean Arnett.
