Thursday, March 19, 2009

Jodi Picoult's next novel to deal with legal troubles of teen with Asperger's

Novelist Jodi Picoult is currently on a book tour promoting her current novel, Handle with Care, which focuses on a wrongful- birth lawsuit. (Picoult always focuses on the tough topics of the day. I highly recommend her 2004 novel, My Sister's Keeper, which told the story of a teen who was conceived to provide bone marrow for her older sister with leukemia.) In the Dallas Morning News, she discussed her next two book topics:

Picoult's next book, tentatively titled House Rules, is already finished and should be out in March 2010. That book deals with a teenager with Asperger's syndrome who is accused of a crime. "It's really about how the legal system works very well if you communicate a certain way, but it falls to hell in a handbasket if you don't," Picoult says.

In the midst of her book tour, she's already at work on her 2011 book, which is about embryo donation and gay rights.

"Of all the books, I am so looking forward to writing, I think this one is the one that most needs to be written," she says.

Picoult says her fans often say that she must be psychic, because of her knack for writing about subjects just as they're becoming hot topics.

"I've just been lucky in that," she says with a laugh.

"I write about the things that everyone worries about. I write about the things that keep me up at night."