Book 1, Part 7 Summary

Grace McGinnis is a schoolteacher in Milwaukee, Oregon, a bedroom town for Portland. She is a friend of Bessie's, Gary's mother, whom she came to know while teaching Bessie's younger son Mikal. She never taught Gary, however. Grace becomes embroiled in Bessie and Gary's endless trials and travails while Gary is locked up in Oregon State Penitentiary. She goes on visits with Bessie to see her little black sheep and comes to know Gary only as a character on the other side of a table in the prison visiting room. She eventually severs ties with Bessie and her clan, unable to bear up under the constant emotional strain of one crisis after another. She has had no contact with the Gilmores for several years when she first learns of the Provo murders. Nonetheless, she feels qualified to become an apologist for...