The Grace of Guilt

When fifteen-year-old Jessica Jackson’s crush on her pastor's son leads to rape, she finds herself pregnant and alone, rejected by both family and church as an unrepentant sinner. And when fellow-church member, Simon Cassell’s homosexual relationship with his high school friend is discovered, he is beaten by his father and ostracized. Meanwhile, middle-aged Dwight Cook is struggling with the economic failure of his business, the town hardware store, with estrangement from his wife and oldest son, and with uncontrollable lust for a female employee half his age.

The outcasts’ struggles with underserved guilt intensify when a lynching brings the FBI to the rural North Carolina town and both church and family members are implicated, and when a tormented loved one commits suicide.

The Grace of Guilt follows the destruction of three families and their quests for redemption, and examines the old prejudice of the new South.