Salem Falls

In Jodi Picoult’s Salem Falls, a novel about reputation, romance, and redemption, the protagonist and narrator, Jack St. Bride, a tall, blond-haired, and handsome man, is released from Grafton County Prison in New Hampshire after he has served out his eight-month sentence. He relocates to the small New England city of Salem Falls, New Hampshire, eager to start over and to escape the scandal of his recent past.

Jack St. Bride was once a well-respected, charming teacher and coach soccer at a girls’ preparatory school. When his student Catherine Marsh develops a crush on him, broadcasting her fantasies as fact, he is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a minor. He pleads guilty to a lesser charge, sexual assault of a minor, a crime he did not commit. Catherine Marsh’s allegations are completely false, the immature, spiteful reaction to her unreciprocated feelings.

Jack’s arrival in Salem Falls is met with some suspicion, as he is a stranger with an unknown past. State law requires Jack to register himself as a sex offender at his local police department where this information is recorded and made available to the public. This policy is ultimately responsible for Jack’s inability to leave his past in the past.



Women are understandably wary of Jack, and he is understandably wary of women. Nevertheless, he secures employment at Do-or-Diner as a dishwasher making minimum wage. He falls into place, showing that he is a reliable and competent worker and a friendly, trustworthy guy. Gradually, he becomes closer with Addie Peabody who invites Jack to live with her father who co-owns the diner with her. Addie is sad and withdrawn, as she is grieving the death of her only daughter, Chloe, who died at six years old from meningitis. Despite Jack’s sudden arrival and murky past, Addie develops a romantic interest in Jack.

However, trouble threatens the couple’s happiness when four well-off teenage girls, Gillian, Whitney, Meg, and Chelsea spot Jack, the mysterious, attractive new arrival, in the diner one day. Their boredom has prompted them beyond the typical mischievous activities of youth; the four form a coven, experimenting with Wicca, or witchcraft.

Jack does his best to avoid the group although he mistakenly encounters them in the forest one night as they are celebrating a Wiccan holiday. Intoxicated, he runs away from the group in a desperate attempt to avoid trouble; later, he is unable to recall the events of that night. Gillian later accuses Jack of sexually assaulting her and goes to the police. The case goes to trial, thwarting Jack’s attempts to restabilize his personal life and destabilizing his new relationship with Addie.



The case goes to trial. Addie is unsettled by Gillian’s claims that Jack touched her in a sexual manner; her jaded opinion of men begins to unravel her faith in Jack, as she believes no woman would lie about such a thing. Jack’s mother, Annaliese, also distrusting of men, ceases speaking with Jack when the trial begins.

Jordan McAfee and her assistant, Selena Damascus work to prove Jack’s innocence. Slowly, they work to cast reasonable doubt against Gillian’s claims. The group of girls claims they were sober on the night of the incident, and the initial court drug lab results support their claim. Jordan, however, still suspicious, hires a private lab to confirm these results. The private lab finds evidence of hallucinogens in their blood. Chelsea’s conscience gets the best of her, and she mails “The Book of Shadows,” a work which reveals the group’s Wiccan affiliations, to Thomas, Jordan’s son who also has a crush on Chelsea. Eventually, a flashback reveals what really happened on the night of “the incident”; as Gillian was falling, Jack caught her by the arm to steady her; there was nothing sexual about the way he touched her whatsoever.

Soon, all becomes clear. Gillian’s childhood psychiatric record reveals her to be a compulsive liar. Meg tells her father, Charlie, a policeman, that the entire thing was a ploy to cause legal trouble for Jack as Gillian felt rejected by Jack when her romantic feelings were not reciprocated. Eventually, we learn that Addie was gang-raped at sixteen, providing the reason she has been so anxious and disturbed by these recent events and why she raised her deceased daughter, Chloe, alone: she never knew the father’s identity.



The book ends with Jordan and Selena forming a new romantic relationship, a result of their working closely together during Jack’s case. Thomas and Meg get together, brought closer together by their involvement in the case, too. Jack asks Addie to move to New York with him in hopes of reconciling his relationship with his mother who lives there. Addies agrees to accompany Jack, and their bond grows stronger than ever.