Salem Falls

Salem Falls

Adult fiction
Going to class in happier days I would always stop by a little
free library to donate books and look for acquisitions. One day I
struck gold: an older (2001) novel by one of my favorite authors, Jodi
Picoult. I put Salem Falls in my backpack for when I'd have time to
really enjoy it. I am very glad I did. Sheltering in place gave me a
lot more time for reading books. It is a book to be savored, not
skimmed. The reason it came into being adds to its richness.
"I wanted to write an update of the Crucible, because so many of
the themes in Arthur Miller's play [reviewer's note: written about the
Salem Witch Trials during the McCarthy Communist hunt frenzy] are
still so timely: the concept of a town excluding someone they don't
believe to be a fit; the way lies spread so much faster than truth,
the very idea that truth is a subjective quantity, at the mercy of
many influences..."
That would be quite a challenge. Salem Falls meets it quite
beautifully."
"He wished he had a winter coat, but you wore out of jail the
same outfit you wore in. What he did have was the forty-three dollars
that had been in his wallet on the hot afternoon he was incarcerated,
a ring of keys that opened doors to places where Jack was no longer
welcome, and a piece of gum."
Jack McBride has just been released from prison. He has nobody
waiting for him and nowhere to go. Luckily when he stumbles into a
small town diner he is able to get a job as a dish washer and a room
in the owner's father's above the restaurant apartment. Before his
conviction he had been a private school teacher and coach, taken down
by a student's false rape accusation. Now he has become unable to
trust again. When the owner mentions the room he asks why she's doing
this for him.
"Addie met his suspicion head-on. She was doing this because
she knew what it was like to hit rock bottom and to need someone to
give you a leg up. She was doing this because she understood how a
world jammed with phones and emails and faces could still leave you
feeling bitterly alone..."
Seven years previously Addie had lost the most important person
in her life, her beloved daughter, Chloe, to bacterial meningitis.
She's left Chloe's room exactly as it was when her child was alive,
prepares food for her, and gives Delilah the cook instructions on her
care. She knows the townspeople think she'd crazy. But she's
terrified of losing Chloe again by forgetting her. [Very much like me
and my beloved Joey cat who passed last summer of cancer after 16
years of love and loyalty. I still talk to him.]
Even as Jack and Addie start to experience feelings for one
another, you know it's not going to be that easy.
First a police officer who has an unrequited crush on Addie
discovers that Jack is on the registered sex offender list and decides
to spread the word around town. When Jack goes to the police station
to report threatening graffiti the detective who takes his complaint
warns him that he's watching him...if he so much as looks at a high
school girl...
There is a coven of high school girls, including the daughter of
the owner of the pharmaceutical company that is the town's primary
employer, self declared Wiccans, who get together to do spells. Their
rituals are growing in intensity. One night they're doing a lot of
stuff that could really get them in trouble...
"...but they have themselves a scapegoat. He's been convicted
once before. People are more than ready to believe he'd reoffend.
If you want a story with a spell binding plot and believable
characters, one that might have you scrutinizing anew facets of life
you might have taken for granted, you can't do better than Salem Falls
or any of Picoult's other fibre novels.
On a purrrsonal note, I had quite an adventure yesterday. It's the
weekend where Veazie residents can have yard sales without permits.
So for my walking I made the rounds of the town, checking out the yard
sales and making some good finds. If I felt tired I'd push through to
make sure I got my half hour. When I felt light headed and
disoriented, though, I decided to go home. A guy gave me an ice cold
bottle of water which I drank in three minutes. It turned out that
I'd been walking two hours in 94 degree heat. (Jules)
It is much too hot!!! (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the people who have summer yard sales.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway




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