The Storyteller by Piccoult - 4 Stars

This book by Piccoult is better than most of the author’s efforts and the story is a page turner.  Four characters populate the novel.  Sage, a member of one of the few Jewish families in her  small Connecticut town, is the main character.   She is the youngest of three sisters and the daughter of a widow. Her father died a few years earlier of natural causes.  On the way home from her college graduation, she and her mother are involved in a terrible accident.  Her mother is critically injured and after lingering 3 months she dies.  Sage is disfigured in the accident by a scar that runs along one side of her face.  As a result she joins a grief group.  In the grief group she meets Herman, a beloved high school German teacher who has been a contributor to community life in their small Connecticut town.  Herman , the second  character, is a  widower and reformed Nazi SS man hiding under an assumed identity and seeking redemption.  Minka, is Sage’s grandmother.  She survived Auschwitz and married one of her American liberators.  She is the third character. Leo, our fourth character, is a Jewish justice department Nazi hunter.  Sage is hiding from life both because she is self conscious about her scar and because she feels guilt ridden over her mother’s death.   Sage was driving back from  college graduation with her mother when  they are involved in a terrible accident.  Her mother dies as a result of the injuries she sustained in the collision.    Furthermore, Sage  believes her two sisters blame her for her mother’s death. 

Sage takes a job as a baker working nights for an ex-nun who seems to attract broken characters.  Night work allows Sage to hide from life and avoid facing the public with her scar.  She feels unloved and unlovable by all but her grandmother. Herman makes friends with Sage, because he has an ulterior motive.  He believes that if he confesses his sins to a Jew and she forgives him,  he can go on to the happy hunting ground and be eligible for heaven.  Sage no longer practices Judaism and considers herself to be a Buddhist maybe. 

In any case Herman is wrong.  He is unaware that Sage’s beloved grandmother, Minka, is a holocaust survivor.  Minka never told her granddaughters her story, but now Sage seeks it out.  We have four story lines here.  Each story is told in the narrator’s voice.  The author uses a clever technique to indicate the change of voice.  She changes the print type for each character.  For me the most compelling story was Minka’s tale.  Like all holocaust histories I was drawn to her story of suffering and noble survival in spite of all odds. She was the only person in her large extended family to survive.  Sage who was never pretty and feels even less attractive now believes she is destined to lead a lonely single life while her sisters enjoy the companionship of their own families.  Herman is 95 and healthy while  Minka is about 90 and ailing.   Leo is single and has no love interest on the horizon.  He is probably in his mid thirties.  A love interest develops between Leo and Sage.  The love interest is the only cheesy element of the story.  It is just too pat.  Like all Piccoult novels it is the way in which she ties up all the loose ends. Typically, I do not like novels  which switch from the past to the present day.  However, in this case with the change of type face there is no confusion or difficulty switching from time periods and narrator.  This device is successful.