Mary Pat Fennessy

Mary Pat, one of the novel's two perspective characters, is a hard-edged woman from South Boston attempting to raise her daughter, Jules, as a single mother. Mary Pat comes from a long line of Irish South Boston residents and as such has largely assimilated to the culture of the neighborhood, inheriting both their toughness and their distrust of outsiders. As a result, though Mary Pat is fiercely loyal to her daughter and her customs, she is also prone to racism, a quality that is brought out by the anti-busing protests sweeping through the neighborhood as the novel begins.

The relative security of Mary Pat's life is shattered when her daughter, Jules, becomes involved in the murder of a Black man named Auggie Williamson whose mother is one of Mary Pat's coworkers. Mary Pat first responds to this loss by attempting to call on the Butler organization...