13 in 2013: Book Nine

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It can be said that our life is made up of chapters: an ever evolving story with various characters entering and leaving. Some characters playing main roles in multiple chapters, their impact obvious and life altering. Others, merely come and go without so much as a ripple. It can also be said that each of us houses the seeds of good and evil within, nurturing and growing both throughout our lives; however, it is often within our power which seeds we choose to sow, evil always lurking beneath the surface of any good choice.

As we mold the story of our life, we learn that stories play a multitude of roles in our daily choices and being. There are stories of future goals, dreams and possibilities. There are the stories we tell ourselves when we doubt our own capabilities. There are stories we tell others to cover up that doubt. There are stories that affect us more than we’d like to ever admit and there are stories that alter our life path forever, the chains of which remain connected no matter what we do. Honesty: a story that unfolds itself. Lies: stories we tell ourself and believe so deeply that we try to live them.

Sage Singer and Josef Weber: two characters unlikely to form a friendship. Two characters who could not be more different on the surface; however, their life stories become woven together by a tapestry of moral struggles and family history. Josef has only been coming to the local grief support group for two weeks when he starts a conversation with Sage. That conversation would lead to another, and then another. Both living seemingly invisible lives, choosing to walk alone, they find a comfort and friendship with each other neither has known in a very long time. It is when Josef asks Sage for an unbelievable favor that both discover the depths to which long-buried secrets and lies can tear apart a heart. And life.

The Storyteller is a book that explores the magnitude of moral indiscretions and their effect on our life’s path. Can one ever truly escape a past chapter wrought with lies? Can evil deeds be erased by a life of good choices laced with guilt? What lengths would you go through to find forgiveness in others?

“I know how powerful a story can be. It can change the course of history. It can save a life. But it can also be a sinkhole, a quicksand in which you become stuck, unable to write yourself free.”

Beyond photographs which leave interpretations up to the viewer, stories live on…”some stories live forever”.