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Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

Obwohl primär eine Geistergeschichte wurden von Picoult wieder mehrere Themen zu einer faszinierenden Erzählung verflochten - Trauerarbeit, Vermont hinter den Kulissen der idyllischen Herbstlandschaften, mit einem ganz besonders intensiven Blick auf das Vermont Eugenics Project der 20er und 30er Jahre und dessen Auswirkungen auf die Abenaki, auf bizarre Weise miteinander verknüpfte Familienschicksale - das alles wurde zum Schluß so unerträglich spannend, dass ich das letzte Drittel fast in einem Rutsch auslas. Und das obwohl ich mich am Anfang noch schwertat in das Buch hineinzukommen, aber sobald die Charaktere erst einmal etabliert waren, ließ es mich nicht mehr los.
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Ross had gone to homes with the Warburtons where children had died of disease, or by accident. The mothers wore hope like mantillas, framing their faces as they waited for Curtis to give them back what they'd lost. In those cases, it was not moans and thumps and strange occurrences that had led to the call, it was the lack of them.
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She believed that unadulterated devotion had its share of protective power, as if love were a steel girder the Fates could not snip through. She also believed that the moment you relaxed your guard, the moment you were anything less than ferocious in your keeping, that was the moment it could all be snatched away.
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Shelby knew that some librarians felt the human brain was like a microfiche file, impossibly tiny images and words on transparent leaves, arranged page by page for a person's viewing pleasure. But every time she saw those miniature dossiers, she thought that if any part of the body were similarly catalogued, it would be the heart. She imagined autopsies, the organ sliced thin. One sliver would chronicle the way oyu had cherished a child; one would record the feelings you had for parents and siblings. Another, scarlet, might be etched with moments of passion; angels embracing on the head of a pin. And for those who were lucky, the thinnest slice would be teeming with memories of a love so strong it turned you inside out and left you gasping, and would be an identical match to a slice stored in the heart of a soul mate.

(Jodi Picoult, Second Glance, 2003)