Small Great Things by Jodie PIcoult

Ruth is an African-American nurse in the labor and delivery ward of a Connecticut hospital.  She has a 20 year record of superior service.  One evening she is assigned the case of a white supremacist and his equally racist wife.  After their child is delivered, they request that she not touch their child again. For years Ruth has ignored the mostly unintended insults she encounters but this hurts to the core.  Still she remains silent to keep the job she needs to keep her intelligent, promising son in the private school that will most likely allow him the future he deserves.  And then she finds herself alone in the nursery when the baby stops breathing.  That is not the real story.  She is sued by the parents for failing to save their son.  That is kind of the story.  Her lawyer assures her that the trial cannot be about race.  But that is really what this story is about.  Ruth's internal dialog and the story of her struggle to succeed in a world that always defines her first as black is both enlightening and disturbing.  Her conversations with her son are a window into what it means to be defined as black in America.  It is fiction and a story told by an advantaged white woman.  How realistic is Ruth's story? How likely the ending?  Picoult expected blow back and indeed there has been criticism by some but it was still a thought provoking read and well worth discussing.