The Pact

The Pact

YA/adult fiction
"He tried to imagine Emily. Where she was now. At some funeral
home? In the morgue? Where was the morgue anyway...It was never
listed on the elevator stops. He shifted uncomfortably, wincing at
the thunder in his head, trying to remember the last thing Emily said
to him.
His head hurt, but not nearly as much as his heart."
I think we can all agree that a parent's worst nightmare is
being called to a morgue to identify the body of a beloved child.
Having a son or daughter arrested for committing a horrific crime
probably comes in a close second. Now imagine that the families
caught up in this tragedy are long time neighbors and close friends.
That's the premise on which Jodi Picoult's The Pact is based.
Chris and Emily have been best friends literally since infancy.
Spending as much time in each other's houses as in their own and
confiding in one another, they're in ways like sister and brother.
When they begin dating, it's no surprise to their families who had
been hoping for them to do exactly that.
Their relationship, however, couldn't have been that perfect.
One night in the late autumn of their senior year in high school a
police officer discovers Emily and Chris at a carousel. Emily is
nearly dead. Chris is bleeding from a head wound that will require 70
stitches. No third party is located. The gun that fired the fatal
shot has Chris' fingerprints on it.
Was it murder or a murder/suicide pact that was interrupted?
Why would teens who seemingly had everything they needed even
contemplate either?
You read The Pact in the active role of detective. Picoult
skillfully segues between present and past. In the present you're
privy to the thoughts and actions of the remaining major players:
Chris adjusting to life in prison, both sets of grieving parents
coping with their losses, and the opposing lawyers. In the
sequentially ordered flashbacks you get intimate snapshots of the two
teens and the world they inhabited.
Picoult's inspiration for writing The Pact was a suicidal eighth
grade girl she taught and then lost track of. "I wanted to write the
anti-Romeo and Juliet story: the families that were too close instead
of being enemies--and that still wind up hurting their star-crossed
children as a result..." Interestingly, she originally was going to
have the girl be the one to live and experience survivors' guilt. A
conversation with a chief of police changed her mind. He explained
that if the guy was the survivor they'd book him for murder.
"I just stared at him. What if, I wondered, Chris was the one
who was alive at the start of the book, instead of Emily? What if he
lied to you at the beginning of the book...so that you didn't really
know whether he was telling you the truth about anything that had
happened that night? Suddenly I no longer had a character study on my
hands...I had a page turner."
That's the dictionary definition of understatement. If you want
an impossible-to-put-down suspense story for your summer reading, The
Pact is a perfect fit. If you want to get insight into the cause of
death of far too many of our sons and daughters it's also your go-to
book.
On a personal note, Artsapalooza was wonderful. There were so many
acts to choose from. The atmosphere was quite festive. The weather
was perfect. I had lots of fun reading my poetry to a very
appreciative audience. Not surprisingly, my Joey cat poems were the
most popular ones.
Then yesterday I sat down in my studio to write my August opinion
piece. I'm really excited that Maine will be the first New England
state to let people choose X instead of M or F on licenses and state
IDs. I decided to write about my own experience of being two spirit
to show what a good idea it is. I'd worked out a bunch of it in my
head as I went around my regular life like when I was grocery shopping
with Eugene. So when I sat down to write I was inspired. I was on
fire! The piece just flowed. When I was finished I had a cohesive,
persuasive piece no one else could have penned. I was just so
confident and proud. I celebrated my achievement with a dark beer and
caramel M&Ms--a winning combination.
jules hathaway


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