Mini-Review: Nineteen Minutes

It was the blurb on the cover that drew me: “Your son says the bullying was unbearable. But his revenge was murder. What would you do?” Sensationalistic, but to a Mom of two boys, it intrigued.

In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. You can read a story to a child or have your oil changed. You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem. In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it.

In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.

It was the first time I picked up a Jodi Picoult novel, and it turned out to be a good introduction to the author. Nineteen Minutes tells the story of Peter Houghton, a 17-year old boy, who one day walked into his high school and shot dead ten people, schoolmates and a teacher. Countless others were injured, including a Homecoming Queen who lost half her face and a jock who got permanently brain-damaged.

The story is not so much the shooting but the events that lead up to the violence. What happened to turn a shy 17-year old into a mass murderer?

Picoult’s narrative weaves in and out of the past – the bullying that took place from the time Peter was five years old and escalated as he grew older, Peter’s dry social life, his parents’ doting on his older brother Joey who unfortunately died when Peter was sixteen and became the family martyr, his teachers’ inability to handle the bullies, Peter’s own inability to retaliate – but also takes us through the present.

Peter imagined what his Mother would say if he came home with a paper that had a big fat A on it – if, for just once in his life, he did something everyone expected of Joey, and not Peter.

Picoult’s greatest strength, in my opinion, is her ability to delve into her characters’ emotional turmoils and it’s especially wrenching to live through the pain of Peter’s parents, his Mom, Lacy, especially, who blame themselves for Peter’s behaviour.

It was simple to say that behind every terrible child there was a terrible parent, but what about the ones who had done the best they could? What about the ones, like Lacy, who had loved unconditionally, protected ferociously, cherished mightily – and still raised a murderer?

What’s more painful, though, is to get into the head and heart of Peter himself – and to read through his transformation from a shy, passive, highly sensitive child to a bitter, confused teen, and finally, to a resigned young adult.

The story’s other characters are no less interesting, particularly Superior Court Judge Alex Cormier whose daughter Josie used to be Peter’s close friend, until she became one of the popular crowd and ditched him. Alex allows us a glimpse into the court circuit while Josie provides a complex counterfoil to Peter’s character. Towards the end of the story, Josie’s role becomes clearer. In irony, Peter’s Mom is a midwife, bringing life to the world, and his Father, Lewis, is an economics professor who specialises in measuring happiness.

One of the tenets of his breakthrough – H = R/E, or happiness equals reality divided by expectation – was based on the universal truth that you always had some expectation for what was to come. In other words, E was always a real number since you could not divide by zero. But recently, he wondered about the truth of that….Lewis had come to believe that you could be conditioned to expect absolutely nothing from one’s life. That way, when you lost your first son, you didn’t grieve. When your second son was jailed for a massacre, you were not shattered. You could divide by zero; it felt like a canyon where your heart used to be.

There’s of course a whole entourage of teenagers populating the book – and Picoult managed to make even the most horrible bully (usually it’s the most popular kid in school, right?) sympathetic.

The story highlights teenage angst and the complexities of negotiating high school politics. I appreciate it most for the questions it raises, though: bullying in general; authority figures who do not stop the victimisation of those in their care; parental responsibilities and how easy it is to overlook a child’s troubles; and how violent tendencies are nurtured when there is no recourse or redress for victims of bullies. 

The thread of compassion and humanity runs strong throughout the book – and it’s difficult to cast any character into a clear-cut bad or good guy role (though the bullies in this tale certainly get my vote for the former). The story offers no neat or happy endings but the issues it highlights will make you remember Peter, Josie and their lives, long after the last word is read.

 

Filed under: Personal Note

Women to the Rescue

Last month, I received an invitation from a friend to attend a Mother’s Day celebration organised by an NGO, eHomemakers, a group that promotes working from home, teleworking and the running of SOHO businesses through the use of information and communications technology. 

This ten-year old group also has a programme, Salaam Wanita, which aids women who cannot work outside of their homes to learn skills and start micro-businesses to earn a living, especially through eco-basket weaving. (An aside: I would encourage you to view and buy the baskets – they’re made of recycled magazines and are sturdier than the usual straw. Each is beautifully unique in colour and pattern as well. I’ve bought nearly half a dozen as gifts and while they are priced on the high side, you are helping a good cause.)

The ceremony at a convention centre was sponsored by Nestle, which has been a strong supporter of the group since its inception, and while the affair was a simple one, it was clear that the women (and some men) being feted and recognised were uplifted by the attention. Small grants for businesses were awarded, one of them organised by my friend, and the women who accepted the grants seemed eager to start their projects and become independent breadwinners. Most of them were single parents, one was abandoned by her husband, and many had disabilities or had disabled children and parents to care for. The women cut across ethnic lines with one recipient coming all the way from East Malaysia. What they had in common was their determination to improve their lives and especially, to provide well for their children.

A mother would sacrifice herself for her children.

I sat next to a lady who reminded me of my own Mom. Julia is a single parent who has had amazing success in the corporate world, and who decided to chuck the high-flying corporate life to found a non-profit enterprise, the Truly Loving Company (TLC) which aims to donate a portion of all receipts from the sale of its household products to selected charities. TLC’s products are available in retail outlets and the charities that benefit to date are:Shelter and Rumah Aman, among others. HSBC Trustee is the overseeing body for TLC.

I was impressed with Julia’s drive and sincerity, and am pretty sure she will take TLC places, given her extensive corporate background and dedication. I gave her suggestions that I gave another colleague whose family has started a small retail operation – offer an internet option and home delivery service to expand clientele. For working Moms, time is a precious asset, and hours saved grocery shopping would be a blessing.

At any rate, both eHomemakers and TLC are examples of women who got off their butts to help others, and the results are good for society as a whole. Actually, anyone who gets off their butts to implement the ideas percolating in their heads can achieve amazing results.

I caught the tail end of Oprah some nights ago where she interviewed three individuals who each started a big wave of social help, all on their own. One of them began with food coupons and now operates food pantries all across America while another is a former Microsoft employee who has founded Room to Read which helps build libraries in under-developed locations all around the world. Wow. It all began with an idea, and a burning desire.

If you have both, the time to act is now.

Filed under: Personal Note

Office Humour

When there’s nothing much to smile about, at work, I turn to:

Dilbert.

 

A creation of Scott Adams, the history of Dilbert could serve as a sort of inspiration to cubicle inhabitants everywhere. Essentially, Dilbert was created by Scott when he himself was a cubicle-ite, and was an amalgamation of his co-workers. He used Dilbert for his work presentations then was encouraged by the response to try Dilbert for syndication. United Media signed him up and in 1989, Dilbert was launched. Scott still held his day job until 1995, and his work experience (he worked from 1979 to 1995), I believe, is what makes Dilbert and his experiences immediately recognisable to office workers all around the world. So who says all that nastiness you endure at work can’t translate to money, huh?

Dilbert now appears in 2,000 newspapers in 70 countries, and the Dilbert web site, which is fantastic by the way, was the first syndicated comic strip to go online in 1995.

Our Star carries Dilbert in its tech section on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but in black and white. A pity.

At any rate, while you laugh at Dilbert and co (and many times thank the Lord that you do not have a Boss like his), some of his characters and stories will eerily remind you of real life. There is truth in art. And actually, this Dilbert comic strip below is based on a true story:

This guy got fired for posting a Dilbert strip that described managers as “drunken lemurs”; Scott Adams knew about it and created a series of strips around the incident (as above). Not only that, Scott also posted the guy’s resume on his blog, and voila – the guy has now found a new position with one of Adams’s fans. The article quotes Adams as giving this advice though:

“Stick with ‘Garfield.’ No one ever got fired for loving lasagna.”

Heh. I shall continue loving my Daily Dilbert.

Filed under: Collectibles, Playing Favourites, Reads, Work & Productivity , humour, office humour, work

Niki on the Longlist

Niki Aguirre is just about the second author I “know” before their publications get nominated for a prize. The first author I can claim to know “before she was famous” is local columnist, I Am Muslim author Dina Zaman.

Now, Niki – whom I’ve never met, by the way, but whose beautiful blog, The Virtual Onion, was one of my earliest pitstops when I started this blog of mine – has her debut novel, 29 Ways to Drown, nominated for the longlist of the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.

I knew about it late – and only through Eric Forbes’ interview with Niki (and all other longlist nominees).  

Warm congratulations, Niki.

Niki’s (frantically) editing her first novel (good luck!), and had this to say to Eric on the short-story:

My first love is short stories. I love reading them. I love writing them. Until recently—minus a few painful years at university when I dressed in black and fancied myself a poet—that’s all I’ve ever wanted to write. So I’m glad I published my collection first before trying my hand at a novel. I hope to continue writing both.

I’ve only read one book on the longlist: Wena Poon’s Lions in Winter, which I greatly enjoyed. I also went to her book reading a couple of months back and found her to be a very expressive storyteller as well. She read out “Dog Hotpot”, which is just about the most humorous story in the whole collection. My favourite tale, though, is of the Singaporean lady who’s stuck in the American desert. I still remember the story.

These two authors (I promise to read your book, Niki!) – and Dina – inspire the writer in me, and I will be following their writing career with a keen eye.

ps: Sorry about the formatting – the WYSIWYG editor just refuses to respond!

pps: Niki’s a London-based fiction writer, born in the United States to Ecuadorian parents who studied English Literature at the University of Illinois and holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of London. She is the recipient of the Birkbeck Oustanding Achievement Award for Creative Fiction in 2006 and a grant from the Arts Council of England in 2007.

Filed under: Personal Note