Family Pictures: Dirty Girl Summary

When Mike Jr. was a senior in high school, the night after the final game of the season, a bunch of his friends are involved in something bad with a girl from the school. Della Rae Duncan is a girl from the poor side of town. Her mother is on welfare and her brother was killed in Vietnam. On the night of the game, some of Mike Jr.'s friends take her to the cemetery, get her drunk, and reportedly do things they should not have done.

Della Rae's brother worked for Mulvaney Roofing before he went to Vietnam. Michael Mulvaney cuts his obituary out of the paper and hangs it on the bulletin board in the kitchen. Michael and Corrine often argue about Vietnam, Michael behind the war effort and Corrine against it. Mike Jr. chooses...