Love can redeem a man ... but secrets and lies can condemn him.A handsome stranger comes to the sleepy New England town Salem Falls in hopes of burying his past: Once a teacher at a girls' prep school, Jack St. Bride was destroyed when a student 's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation.
Now, washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, he slips quietly into his new routine and Addie finds this unassuming man fitting easily inside her heart. But amid the rustic calm of Salem Falls a quartet of teenage girls harbor dark secrets - and they maliciously target Jack with a shattering allegation. Now, at the center of a modern-day witch hunt, Jack is forced once again to proclaim his innocence: to a town searching for answers, to a justice system where truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray, and to the woman who has come to love him.
-
The past eighth months Jack was a prisoner convicted of statutory rape. He was offered a plea bargain and his only way to get over with it was accept the offer even if the accusations against him where a mere fiction of a young girls diary.
Trying to get his act together, get a life back he arrives in small town Salem Falls and gets a job as dishwasher in Addie Peabody's Do-Or-Diner. Dutifully he registers at the sheriffs office as a sexual offender.
His relationship with Addie soon intensifies bound through Jack's closeness and fear of being touched and Addie's mourning for her daughter who died years ago. When everything seems to be going it's way the town learns of Jack's former conviction there is no way they are willing to accept a person like him in their little, peaceful town.
Gillian Duncan as a close circle of friends, a coven. The girls are trying to witches, doing good for the people in their town when one of their spells actually works. They decide if their powers are such strong they also could do good for people who have been done wrong by others. Seeing Jack for the first time Gillian develops a crush on him and has to live with his rejection. Only she doesn't want to accept it.
So it happens that Jack after he got terribly beaten up, had a fallout with Addie, runs drunkenly through the woods when he disturbs one of the girls rituals.
The next day he's arrested for the rape of Gillian Duncan.
-
What disturbs me most was the fact that Jack is a character I am used to from my own child/teenage hood. A caring person, a teacher rarely seen these days and certainly bound to suspicion in the United States. It showed me again the differences in attitude between where I come from and where I live today. Being a male teacher and/or coach and being male in the U. S. seems to be just what it is these days: a hot seat I never would want to sit in. It is terrible to know what can be interpreted into a friendly slap on the back.
However, the book keeps a few surprises that aren't mentioned in the books description but as you read they just seem normal, fitting into the plot.
Although I think the ending fell out quite flat without much surprises at that point, it is entertaining from the beginning to the end.
Rating:
Visit Jodi Picoult.
Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Washington Square Press (August 6, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743418719
ISBN-13: 978-0743418713
No comments:
Post a Comment