Phoolon ka taron ka, sabka kehna hain ...
Almost everyone here knows what the next line to that song is. But, the image that it conjures up in front of our eyes is even more precious. No, I’m not talking about Dev Anand singing soulfully to Zeenat Aman!! I mean the images the song brings to our minds of loving our siblings through thick and thin, through better or worse, through good times and bad times. But, has anyone ever had their love severely tested? Has anyone ever thought about love having limits or about the limits of their love for their sibling? Has anyone ever faced a time when they just said, enough is enough! This is to some extent, the story of ’My Sister’s Keeper’.
Sara and Brian Fitzgerald, are the parents of 2 lovely children - 4 year old Jesse and 2 year old Kate and they comprise a typical loving American family. Until the day that Kate is diagnosed with APL - acute promyeloctytic leukaemia. This is a rare form of leukaemia and while there are procedures that doctors can carry out there is no sure-fire means of treatment. Sara and Brian are devastated by the diagnosis and a chance comment by their doctor leads them to consider genetic engineering a child who will be an exact donor match for Kate. They carry out this plan and Anna is born. As a new-born, Anna’s umblical cord blood is used for a cord-blood transplant for Kate. And so it goes on. Every time Kate has to be hospitalised, Anna has to be hospitalised too. Anna undergoes a series of procedures till she is 13 years old - she undergoes removal of white blood cells from her body, bone marrow transplants and a couple of other medical procedures. Until the time that Kate’s kidney fails and Anna’s parents consider donating Anna’s kidney to Kate. At this time, Anna takes a decision that has the potential to tear their family apart forever. She decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation.
The book is heartbreaking and is brilliantly written from each person’s point of view. Alongwith the Fitzgerald family members, we have Anna’s emotionally handicapped attorney Campbell Alexander and Julia Romano the guardian ad litem attached to Anna’s case. The story as it evolves from each person’s perspective is utterly poignant and arresting. It is very hard to separate an issue of this kind into black and white. We empathise with both the parents, since they want their daughter to live and we sympathise with Anna who wants a life of her own and the ability to make her own medical decisions. Anna is a particularly complex character, since she is only 13 years old but with a maturity beyond her years brought about by the environment she lives in. She and Kate are the best of friends since their health issues dont allow either to have any long-term friends of their own. As Kate tells Anna, while the law suit is being tried in court -- ’I could lose a sister, but I dont think I could survive if I lost my friend’. So, we see Anna facing a particularly difficult decision - losing her identity or losing her sister. At times, Anna is shown wondering if her sister had never been diagnosed with APL would she ever have been born, a very difficult and harsh reality for a child of 13 to cope with.
The author also brings out all the other relationships beautifully. The 18 year old brother of Anna and Kate, Jesse is a troubled teen with a juvenile record for petty theft, carjacking and other things. He also has a pyromaniacal streak in him. Picoult sketches out a family where the parents are so involved with their daughter’s impending death that they have forgotten to live and have forgotten the needs of their other children, dismissing Jesse as a problem child and ignoring Anna’s wishes. The relationship between Julia and Campbell is also played out along the lines of missed chances and how people make decisions for others without consulting them.
While, I fully support stem cell research, this book brings to the fore the moral and ethical issues surrounding research today. It is very easy to see the great possibilities for human advancement, but Jodi Picoult opens our eyes to the abuse possible if the moral issues surrounding such research are not carefully thought out beforehand. The ending of the book is a complete twist and astute readers will not see it coming. It seems unnecessarily harsh for Picoult to bring the book to such a heart-wrenching end but this in itself drives home the message that is predominant in the book. The message that life should not be taken for granted and to live it to the fullest by enjoying it to the best of our abilities, for no one knows what tomorrow brings!!