She describes an idyllic childhood in Poland that gradually disintegrated into horror as the Nazis moved all the Jews into ghettos and eventually to concentration camps. After some initial doubts, Minka agrees to tell her story to Sage and Leo. When Leo says that, if possible, they need an eyewitness who can identify Josef (who now says his name is actually Reiner Hartmann), Sage approaches her grandmother Minka, a native of Poland who was imprisoned in a concentration camp during the war. He is skeptical of her claim at first, but after further conversation becomes intrigued enough to ask her to prompt Josef for more information, and eventually to come to New Hampshire to investigate the case himself. Sage immediately contacts the police, who put her in touch with Leo Stein, a thirty-seven year-old divorced attorney with the Department of Justice and passionate hunter of former Nazis. He further surprises the Jewish Sage by first asking her to forgive him and then asking her to help him die.

His reputation, however, is the main reason she is shocked when he confesses that he was an officer in Hitler's army and took part in the mass murders of Jews and other undesirables. Sage's life changes when she meets and becomes friends with ninety-five year old Josef Weber, a former German teacher and baseball coach beloved by the community. Her relationship with a married undertaker (Adam) is a source of friction with her boss/best friend, Mary, but Sage does not feel she deserves any better. She welcomes the opportunity to work alone overnight because it helps her hide from the rest of the world, a habit she has formed since a car accident three years previously left her face scarred and her mother dead.

Twenty-five year old Sage Singer works at Our Daily Bread bakery in her small New Hampshire hometown. Both the confession and the request turn Sage's world upside down, but eventually give her new insights into herself, her family, and the nature and purpose of forgiveness. When she forms an unlikely friendship with 95-year-old Josef Weber, she expects that all she will learn is to play chess with him, so it is a shock when he reveals that he was a guard at a Nazi concentration camp, and later that he wants her to help him die. In Jodi Picoult's novel The Storyteller, baker Sage Singer works alone on the night shift at a small bakery and avoids people during the day, in both situations concealing from other people both a facial scar and the guilt she feels about the accident that caused it.

The storyteller jodi picoult summary