Anonymous Tip: Meet the Prosecutor

Last updated on: January 30, 2015 at 3:16 pm by Libby Anne

Anonymous Tip: Meet the Prosecutor 2015-01-30T15:16:33-04:00 Libby Anne

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Anonymous Tip: A Review Series

Last week we began chapter 2 of Michael Farris’s novel, Anonymous Tip. In the opening pages of the chapter, Donna, the social worker, hatched a plan with her supervisor, Blackburn, to frame Gwen Landis for abuse in order to remove her daughter Casey from her home. Remember that Donna forced her way into Gwen’s home on the basis of an anonymous tip, and there found no evidence for abuse. In spite of this, Donna wants to take Gwen’s daughter Casey from her. Why, exactly? To get back at Gwen for calling her a Nazi and a witch.

It goes without saying that what Donna is doing is both illegal and extremely unethical. It also goes against Donna’s frequent claims that she’s in the business of social work to protect children. If her interest were protecting children, she would move on to the many other cases she ought to have waiting for her.

In this section, we meet the prosecutor who will be making Donna’s case against Gwen Landis before the judge.

Gail Willet joined the office of the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney on the first of May. Her marriage to a Seattle architect had been on the rocks for two years. A cute young secretary proved to be just too alluring. The divorce was final in March.

Farris goes on to say that Gail had graduated from law school at the University of Washington six years before. We aren’t given any indication that she started law school later in life, so if we assume she went straight from undergrad to law school and to that the six years Farris tells us she spent as “a top child abuse prosecutor in the King County Prosecutor’s office” before coming to Spokane, Gail is now 31, and her marriage began to have trouble when she was 29. Just how young was this “cute young secretary” I’m wondering?

But let’s talk about how Farris presents this, because I find it interesting. First of all, he has the prosecuting attorney be a divorced woman. So Donna the social worker is living with her boyfriend (or at least sleeping with him) and Gail the prosecutor is divorced. Neither one of them are living approved lives by evangelical standards. (Of course, the observant reader will note that Gwen is also divorced. Don’t worry, that becomes an issue later, in grand evangelical style.)

But also, note the way it’s ordered. First, we are told that their marriage had been on the rocks for two years. No one party is faulted for this, so the natural assumption would be that both parties had let the marriage fall into disrepair. But then we are told that “a cute young secretary proved to be just too alluring.” As I read it, the suggestion is that their marriage was on the rocks, and in part as a result of that, the husband had an affair with the secretary. But notice who has agency there and who doesn’t—the secretary is the one that does the alluring, and it reads almost as though the husband had no agency.

Frankly, it is the Gail (for letting her marriage slip) and the secretary (for doing the alluring) who are primarily blamed here, and not the husband. And honestly, in this subculture young secretaries are just assumed to be there alluring their bosses, waiting for a wife to let things slip so that her husband will be vulnerable and become easy prey, so it’s really Gail who bears the brunt of the blame. She let her marriage slip, after all!

Now maybe I’m reading too much into this, and it’s true that I’m approaching with some background knowledge of Farris’s views on marriage. Farris believes that women must submit to and obey their husbands, and that women who don’t do this are disobeying God. So am I reading too much into Farris’s description of Gail’s divorce? I’ll leave that to you to decide.

We are told that Gail came to Spokane to get away from Seattle, what with the divorce and all. We learn that the chief prosecutor, Charles Sexton, was excited to bring her on board, because he usually hired prosecutors fresh out of law school, and she came with six years of experience. We are also told, however, that Gail was “competent, tough, and would take no prisoners in the courtroom,” and that Charles was a bit worried about her “tendency to display a harder edge than was the norm” in Spokane. And then we get this:

Twelve-hour days were the norm. If she got busy, she would do more. Work was more than a career for Willet at the moment; it was the salve she chose to place on her inner hurts.

Honestly, we get more character development of Gail here than we’ve gotten of Donna in all these pages! All we really know about Donna is that she is her department’s ace investigator, that she was a party girl in college, and that she’s dating a rich kid who is about to graduate from law school top in his class and has daddy issues. We have very little to help us understand why Donna is acting the way she is.

Next week we turn to Donna’s meeting with Gail, in which she will make her case against Gwen, the case Gail will then argue before a judge.

Note: Since readers have been asking, I should clarify that Farris is not completely clear about who has the affair with the cute young secretary, or whether that secretary is male or female. Given that Gail ends up on the dumps and feeling Seattle, and given that in the evangelical and fundamentalist world it’s generally men who have affairs with secretaries, rather than women, I made the assumption that it was Gail’s husband who had the affair. I also assumed that the secretary was female, as Farris most definitely would have made a big deal of it otherwise.

Uncategorized

Anonymous Tip

Previous Post

January 29, 2015

How HSLDA Talks About Abuse

Next Post

January 31, 2015 Not All Days Are Easy Days

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atheism Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism Family Feminism Homeschool Meta Parenting Patriarchy Politics Purity Quiverfull Social Justice Uncategorized Worthwhile reads

Select a Month February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which city did Paul describe as "a city filled with idols"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jerusalem Rome Athens Corinth