54 pages 1 hour read

Jodi Picoult

The Storyteller

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013

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Part 3, Pages 406-460Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Pages 406-460 Summary

At the hospital, Leo urges Sage to help Josef convalesce so that he can receive legal justice. Josef reveals that before he asked Sage to help him die, he meant to ask her mother. They met briefly at the high school where Josef worked and she told him that she was related to a Holocaust survivor. Josef felt that it was fate—as the daughter-in-law of a survivor, Sage’s mother was the closest he could come to direct forgiveness—but she died before Josef could ask her. He once again begs Sage to help him, crying as he tells her he cannot die by his own hand and has been suffering for 70 years. Sage thinks to herself that if someone can ask for forgiveness, they cannot be a monster. She takes Josef’s hand and tells him that she will help him.

When Sage returns from the hospital Adam is waiting with a bouquet of flowers. He confesses his love to Sage and proposes, promising to divorce Shannon. Sage, whose own family has been torn apart by death, is ashamed that Adam would deliberately ruin his family life for her. She breaks up with him on the spot and sends him home. After crying for hours, she lies down for a nap but is awakened by Adam, who informs her that Minka is dead, having passed away in her sleep several hours earlier.