We learn that Katie’s mother Sarah cut the cord and hid the baby and the shears. The ending is foreshadowed by the slick use of the word “she” at the beginning of the novel rather than a character’s name as the baby’s cord is cut and then tied off with twine in the barn. What does not wash with me is that after the trial is over, in fact, while Ellie is packing her suitcase to leave Katie’s home, Katies’s mother comes into the room and shows Ellie the shears used to cut the baby’s cord. The outcome of the trial seems a bit unrealistic but within the reality of the book, it’s believable enough to be satisfying to readers. Needless to say, this presents substantial problems for defending her at the trial. So, too, the conversations with Katie as both the lawyer and a psychiatrist talk to her in the weeks prior to the trial about the pregnancy and the fact that she has no memory of what happened in the barn.Īs sketchy memories begin to appear, her attorney wants to use an insanity defense and argue that Katie was in a dissociative state, the supposition being that she had completely blocked out any memory of what happened after the baby was born. However, the family’s farm life appears to be to have been realistically covered by the author. It was noted in the comments after the book’s conclusion that no Amish person is likely to read the book, much less use the Internet to post a review. The family is wary, of course, but friendships develop, especially when Ellie pitches in with cooking, cleaning, gardening, and other chores. So Ellie moves into the family farm where she learns what an Amish household is all about.

She is a likely suspect because she hid the pregnancy, either because she never believed it to be real and/or because having a baby out of wedlock is a much more serious religious issue within the Amish community than elsewhere.Įllie, the attorney manages to arrange bail, but the stipulation is that Katie must be supervised. Katie denies that she was pregnant, but is tripped up by the fact that she is hemorrhaging badly and is rushed to the hospital where it’s discovered that her condition is one that can occur after giving birth. When the baby is found hidden beneath some hay, the paramedics are called, and soon after them the police. She says “thank you,” as though God turned the events in the barn into a dream by whisking the baby away. The book begins with Katie, who has hidden her pregnancy from her family and everyone else, giving birth in the middle of the night in the dairy barn on the farm where she lives.

While I enjoyed the book’s themes, especially the placement of a big city lawyer into an Amish household to supervise the bail agreement of a teenage girl charged with murdering her own baby, the ending did not wash with me.

Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult