Who Has The Right? (Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult)

Name: belfin

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Product:	Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult
Date:	23/06/06 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Captivating read.

Disadvantages: Couldn't get any work done til it was finished.

***Background***

This is the third Jodi Picoult book that I have read recently and she is the author of the very popular bestseller, My Sister’s Keeper, which was brought to the public’s attention when it won the Richard & Judy Best Read of 2005. Her courtroom dramas are all very different and right up until the verdict I am never really sure which way the outcome will go.

***The Story***

Vanishing Acts tells the story of a woman who has been brought up by her widowed father, or at least that’s what she has been led to believe. Her world comes crashing round her when the police arrive at their family home and drag her father away on kidnapping charges. It is then up to Delia or Bethany, as she was once called, to make sense of the situation.

With her lawyer fiancé and her own daughter, she takes off to Arizona where her father is standing trial and learns that there is more to her past than she immediately remembers. As the trial goes on, more and more painful memories come to the surface and she eventually learns the truth about why her father did what he did.

***The Characters***

Delia is 28 and lives with her father and daughter in New Hampshire. Along with her bloodhound, Greta, she has found countless missing persons and thoroughly enjoys her job. She has no idea though that a memory of a lemon tree, mentioned to a friend will cause such an enormous turn of events and lead to her father being arrested for her kidnapping. A matter of a custody battle, years before is what has led to this happening and Delia not only has to battle with her feelings for her father, who has lied to her, but her mother, who, in her eyes, didn’t try hard enough to find her.

Andrew is Delia’s father, who says he took her away from her mother when she was 4, because her mother wasn’t capable of looking after her properly. Throughout the trial we find out that there is more to the story than that but it isn’t until he takes the stand that the horrible truth comes out. Will it be enough for the jury to find him not guilty of the crime?

Eric is Delia’s fiancé and also a very good defence lawyer. When Andrew is arrested he rushes to his aid although he isn’t sure of what this will do to his relationship with Delia should he lose the case. He is a recovering alcoholic and the stresses and strains the trial brings on make it difficult for him to stay away from the bottle, but he knows that if he does succumb to his temptations he will lose his fiancé and daughter for good.

Sophie is Delia’s much-loved daughter. She is confused as to why the grandfather she loves is being taken away by the police but adapts well to the situation and forms a special bond with an Indian woman who lives in a trailer next to the one she moves into in Arizona.

Fitz is the third person in the equation, a childhood friend of both Delia and Eric, he is the one who unwittingly gets the police involved when he makes enquiries into Delia’s visions of a time long ago in a warmer climate. As a journalist for a local paper, he is sent to cover the story but can’t help but feel disloyal to Delia and so turns to just being there as a friend. It transpires that he has always had feelings for Delia that are more than just friendship but that he would never do anything to risk that, or would he?

***My Thoughts***

“It takes two people to make a lie work. The person who tells it and the one who believes it.”

This is the quote on the front cover of the book and it is certainly true in the case of this story.

In the same style as My Sister’s Keeper, this book jumps from character to character, as each tells their story of the events that are happening. It is an unusual way of telling a story but Jodi Picoult makes it work exceptionally well in this one, as with the other books that I have read.

The story is full of heartbreak and tension as it is discovered that each character has something in their past that is painful to remember. Delia has the death of her mother to deal with, Eric has his alcoholic mother in the past that probably drove him to drink too and Fitz has the problem of loving someone from a distance for many years as well as having his own difficult childhood to contend with.

As the story goes on, I found it very difficult to blame Andrew for what he has done, despite the pain inside me that I would feel if someone had taken my child away from me. The trial goes back and forth and right up until I read the jury’s verdict, I wasn’t sure which way this book was going to go as there were points on both sides that I could sympathise with.

Delia’s reunion with her mother is very difficult and distressing for her as she has been brought up by a loving father and feels almost disloyal for going to meet her, as she is the one who originally got the police involved all those years ago. You can really feel her pain and confusion in this book and each meeting, where some more information is remembered, is greeted by anger and heartache of what she has lost over the years.

This book kept me guessing all the way through but I love the way that there is more to this than just the trial itself. The entwined lives of Delia, Eric and Fitz don’t feel as though they have just been put there as padding as with some books, but instead are put there to enhance the story and because of the first person style of writing from all the viewpoints we get to see inside each character’s mind and find out exactly what they are thinking and what they disclose to the others.

Andrew’s testimony is fantastic and this is when the real shocker occurs. It is something I hadn’t suspected throughout and really made for a cliffhanger before the last couple of chapters. This book really is worth a read for anyone who likes courtroom dramas mixed with complicated lives.

***Price and Availability***

This hardback version that I read was borrowed from my local library and is priced at £12.99, however you can also get it in paperback form, for the publishing price of £6.99. Tesco however have done it again in respect of being cheaper as their prices are £9.09 for the hardback and only £3.89 for the paperback.

Hardback ISBN No. 0340835486
Paperback ISBN No. 0340835494

Summary: Another good Picoult book