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You know, Jodi Picoult had us for a second there. We were buying into her angst, so to speak. But when she didn’t connect the dots, she lost us after presenting what would be a fine argument. To summarize, her book The Pact resonates with high school students and is being included on reading lists. Once, a mother declared the book “trash” and wanted it banned (our regular readers know how we feel about this subject). Picoult disagreed — her book was not smut or trash.

No, Picoult believes her books are better than that. They are not “beach” reads (this is a concept we have never gotten — have you looked the breadth of reading material on beaches these days?). They address serious issues with appropriate gravity. They are not “those” books. It was Picoult’s blithe unconcern for the fact that she’s dismissing the work of others in the same way her heckler dismissed Picoult’s work that we found irritating.

Yesterday, we attended a workshop with a title to the effect of Using Technology to Build Better Democracy. After we cut through the morass of activist-speak (only to discover they had no concrete ideas on this topic), we realized part of the problem was that the whole subject was so absolutely serious, it couldn’t be engaging. Picoult’s essay reminds us of that session. The only way to tackle the world’s problems, to expose them, is with a heavy hand. Only the angstiest of angsty issues are allowed in real fiction.

Picoult doesn’t stop there. She believes that eventually the pendulum will swing from junk to substance in reading. It is only the substantial books that can effectively explore Ideas. lately, we’ve thought a lot about what readers want and why (Iike the activists, we have no answers, just questions). There is room for all kinds of fiction, and when Picoult relates the story of editors requesting plot and character changes, we have to wonder the context for the discussion. Were the authors given these suggestions from the context that it would appeal to a wider base of readers?

Just as there is plenty of shelf space for a broad spectrum of fiction, there is plenty of room for presenting the human condition from a variety of perspectives. After all, as Picoult herself learned, one person’s trash…

• The Writing Life: On the forces — apparent and hidden — that threaten a writer who dares to be different.