Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary

The Ford County Times went bankrupt after years of mismanagement. Not long before, Joyner William Traynor (Willie) moved to Ford County, Mississippi to work for the small town newspaper. He had grown up in Memphis, studied journalism at Syracuse and just recently graduated. He had dreamed of traveling the world as a reporter, until a college buddy told him how much money could be made by owning a small town newspaper. When the Times went bankrupt, Willie had been working there as a staff reporter for less than two months. He saw an opportunity. Willie got a loan from his wealthy grandmother and bought the paper. At the young age of 23, he became a newspaper publisher. He was still deciding what the paper was to be when Rhoda Kassellaw was brutally raped and murdered.

Part 1, Chapter 1 Analysis

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