When I was a teenager, I was fascinated with witches. I read everything related to them, my favorite comic strip was Sabrina, if the title of a movie had the’w’ word in it and it passed the PG-7 rating the video store owner enforced, I would watch it. Maybe, that’s the reason I’m so totally into Harry Potter et al, notwithstanding the brilliance of that story. The seductive charm of magic(or magick as apparently we have to start spelling it now) hooked me onto these stories time and again. The point is that the word Salem in the title had me reaching for this book on the library shelf and the blurb quickly told me I wasnt wrong about the contents.
Salem Falls has a history - of witchcraft & witch burnings, that is. The town even boasts a statue of the first male witch to be convicted and burned at the stake. Into this, now sleepy, little New England town comes Jack St. Bride, tall, blonde, handsome, a teacher with a PhD in history and a conviction for raping a female student, a crime he has persistently declared he didnt commit. Jack has just left prison after serving his sentence, and lands a job as a dishwasher and handyman at the local diner run by Addie Peabody.
Addie, the town loony, has her own ghosts and difficult past to deal with. Pretty soon, the two emotionally scarred individuals come together giving each other strength, comfort and love. Jack who is slowly learning to adjust to the’outside’ world, becomes the object of fascination of the local teenage girls. In keeping with small town dynamics, the town parents soon learn of Jack’s conviction and are up in arms at the thought of a sexual predator living in such close proximity with their susceptible children. As the modern-day witch hunt against Jack progresses, the police find a group of 4 teenage girls terrified and traumatised in the woods, and accusing Jack of raping one of their friends, Gillian Duncan.
As Jack is arrested, again, with little to no recollection of the events of that fateful night, he finds that the number of people who actually believe him innocent are very few. Addie does, and so does his lawyer, Jordan McAfee, but will this be enough to save him, once they’re all caught up in the juggernaut of the American legal system, where a rapist is most often judged guilty until proven innocent?
This is the second Picoult I have read after My Sister’s Keeper and I was hooked onto it, as much by the story as by Picoult’s writing style. Picoult says that her inspiration for this story was’The Crucible’ and the book is sprinkled with little quotes from this play through out. I must admit I guessed the end of the story, but I was still interested, with the psychology of the characters as well as with the suspense of how she would resolve all the plot lines towards the end.
Picoult’s characters are well-rounded & sensitively written as always. From Jack, the preppy school teacher whom the readers like and connect with almost instantly, to the characters of Addie and Gillian who provide effective foils for each other. Addie, a socially awkward teen when she was herself the victim of rape, to Gillian, the self-confident, manipulative teenage siren. With the inclusion of both of these characters one can sense Picoult does not want to draw any judgements on the victims of sexual assault or the trauma of abuse, for every Gillian there is an Addie, she is more concerned with the suffering on the part of the accused and the consequences of dishonesty.
The latter parts of the novel becomes a coutroom drama and here’s where it falters a little. Not in terms of story, more to do with inconsistencies in the legal processes(speaking with all the authority of an avid watcher of Law and Order SVU) and the forensics involved. Not for Picoult the lengthy and involved legal histrionics of the Grisham tales, but what unravels of the secrets and deceptions behind the seemingly contented lives in the little town is intriguing enough. And for the readers who arent reading between the lines, the ending might itself come as a sucker punch.
I guess since I brought the topic up at all, I must address it - the witchcraft here deals with Wicca. Interestingly, Picoult never takes a stand on the religion leaving this upto the readers, she just describes some Wiccan traditions and rituals and some of the effects of spells practiced by some characters. How much of this is real and how much existing in fevered teenage imaginations, is again left to the reader to decide.
Finally, without giving too much away, I’d like to say that this is an interesting little contemporary novel to while away the time with. The issues it raises of love & trust, parental relationships, the teenage psyche, dishonesty, prejudice are all worth pondering.
Recommended with 3.5 stars!