“Plain Truth” by Jodi Picoult (post 2): Lawyer defends young woman who claims amnesia for conception, pregnancy, delivery, and asphyxiation of her baby

In the first 150 pages of this 405-page novel, Katie, 18, an Amish woman, is shown giving birth to a premature infant, who is later found dead, probably from asphyxiation. Katie denies ever having had sexual relations, ever having been pregnant, or having given birth: she claims amnesia for all these things.

The other protagonist is Ellie, 39, a brilliant defense lawyer, who is having a mid-life crisis from getting bad people acquitted and never having gotten married or had children. As a distant relative of Katie, she takes the case.

Ellie has felt that Katie’s claim of amnesia is sincere. And her psychiatric consultant tells her that some cases of neonaticide have been associated with “a dissociative state that lasts through pregnancy…They’ve dissociated from the reality of the event, experiencing memory lapses…” Ellie replies, “Sounds very Sybil to me” (1, p. 132). [Sybil was a famous case of multiple personality.]

However, Ellie and the psychiatrist cannot be sure that Katie is telling the truth. One thing that undermines Katie’s credibility is her having referred to the dead baby as a boy, when nobody is known to have told her.

And other than Ellie’s passing reference to Sybil, multiple personality has not been mentioned or considered. So I am not expecting anything more about it.

As to who might be the father of the baby, the chief suspect is now Adam, who has recently earned a Ph.D. in paranormal science; i.e., ghosts. And since Katie has a history of recurrently seeing the ghost of her sister, she and Adam have ghosts in common and are attracted to each other.

Coincidently, Jodi Picoult, on her website, says her favorite of all her novels is Second Glance (2003), in which the protagonist is a ghost hunter.

Search “ghost” for past posts.

1. Jodi Picoult. Plain Truth. New York, Washington Square Press, 2000.