Anonymous Tip: In Which Peter Has Second Thoughts

A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris

Pp. 171-174

Last week, Gwen won her hearing. This week, she gets Casey back.

Gwen and her parents drove the few miles north to pick up Casey. A few tears were shed but there was mostly laughter and hugging and kissing all around. Gwen expressed sincere appreciation to Brenda MacArthur. Casey seemed to be as happy as was possible under the circumstances.

And that’s it. That’s really and truly it. We don’t get any dialogue, and certainly no words from Casey, and we don’t get to hear anything about Casey’s time at the MacArthurs, or anything else about how Casey is feeling or about her expereinces. Farris tells us that Gwen would go back to work the next day and that life seemed to be returning to normal, except for Casey’s nightmare that night, and then we’re completely done with Casey for this section.

Because we all know Casey is just a prop in a book about Gwen and Peter, right?

On some level, I get it. Most books for adults are written about adults. The reason the near absence of Casey from this book bothers me is the way it underscores Farris’s political focus on parental rights to the complete exclusion of children’s rights. Anonymous Tip is a book about a corrupt social services department. Farris could have centered children and their rights in his treatment, but instead he chose to center parents and their rights. It’s a reminder of Farris’s priorities.

And right now his real priority is having Gwen dwell on the awesomeness that is Peter.

“God, thank You for answering my prayers about Casey,” she said softly as she lay staring at the ceiling. “I was so worried. I don’t understand how You work exactly. But thank You anyway. And thank You for sending Peter to be my lawyer. Maybe that’s one of the ways You work, I don’t know. Oh well. Amen.”

One thing that’s fascinating to me about Gwen’s approach to religion is that she appears to assume that there is a God, and the Christian God at that, but to have very little knowledge of or interest in Christianity. In my experience, people tend to have much more firm ideas and opinions. Gwen’s complete absence of having ever really thought about any of this combined with her apparent assumption that the Christian God exists feels weird to me. But then, this could be because I live in the Midwest.

Anyway, Farris is more interested in having Gwen dwell on his hero:

Gwen let her mind dwell on Peter and all he had done for her. And the more she thought, the more Peter the man began to stand out more than Peter the lawyer. She was genuinely impressed with his character, his sincere desire to help the helpless, his stability, and even his religious commitment—though she didn’t understand that yet.

Farris, Farris, Farris.

The level of adoration for Peter that Farris heaps onto every character in this book is jarring and unrealistic. I do not find Peter a realistic hero—actually no, I do. I find Peter’s pretentiousness, his willingness to play fast and lose with ethics, and his steamrollering of his client very realistic. What I don’t find realistic is that every woman in this book swoons over him at every chance. Remember the nurses at the hospital where Gwen works? Remember the legal aides at the government offices? It reads as though Peter is a narcissist and writing these sections himself, completely detached from any understanding of what people actually think of him.

But we’re not done yet!

Gwen had never really contemplated Peter’s statements to her in their first conversation about not being able to marry a divorced woman. Her mind was so focused on getting Casey back that she never even tried to understand. Now, it puzzled her. She knew he was handsome and had been exceedingly kind to her, but her thoughts had not developed much beyond that stage. For the first time she realized that it was apparently not even a possibility she and Peter could see each other in a new dimension, and the thought left her feeling strangely empty.

Can I just go back to how inappropriate it was for Peter to tell Gwen this when offering to be her lawyer? Ostensibly, he told her because he wanted her to know that he would not proposition her as her previous lawyer, Bill Walinski had. But come on. All he had to do was tell her how to report Bill and encourage her to do so, and then tell her that he holds himself to the highest professional standards, etc. His telling her he couldn’t marry her because she was divorced was just weird, in part because there is such a thing as people sex outside of marriage, so his not being able to marry her wouldn’t have prevented him from propositioning her a la Bill. In fact, him telling her what he did should have pegged him as a creep.

But no, we’re in Farris-land, and in Farris-land only people with ethnic/Jewish sounding names are creeps and Good Christian Gentlemen like Peter are never anything of the sort. This despite the fact that in the 1990s, when Farris was writing this book, Farris was under the influence of a religious leader named Bill Gothard, who it later came out was preying on the teenage girls in his employ. In fact, during those same years Farris was employing a man named Doug Phillips, who later created his own religious empire and spent years sexually grooming and harassing his children’s young nanny. In some sense, Farris spent the 1990s surrounded by Christian predators, but that reality is nowhere to be found in this book.

Anyway, back to the book. How is Peter doing now that he’s won the case?

The legal victory was bittersweet. He had poured his heart and soul into winning, but winning meant less contact with Gwen. That thought was both disappointing and troubling. He was disappointed because he wanted to keep seeing her. Yet he was troubled because he knew his desires did not mesh with the lessons he believed the Bible taught. Gwen was not a believer. But Peter believed that her spiritual condition might well change anytime. Her status as a divorcee was unchangeable—absent the unlikely possibility Gordon would drink himself to death sometime soon.

With these thoughts in mind, what do you think Peter did? He grabbed his Bible and his copy of Strong’s Concordance, of course! (Let it be noted that he had to go downstairs for String’s Concordance, but that his Bible was already on his bedside table). Peter then stayed up flipping through both books until he literally fell asleep sitting on his bed. Why, you ask? Because Peter’s suddenly wondering if he is maybe wrong about what the Bible says about marrying a divorced woman, of course.

The next morning—it’s Wednesday—Peter went to the office to get to work on some paying cases he had put off. After spending the morning working, he grabs lunch at “a deli on the ground floor of the Paulson Building” and then spends his lunch hour researching “the possibility of a civil rights lawsuit against the social workers.” He starts by looking up Meyers v. Contra Costa County, which Gail had cited in court.

Peter finds that social workers have immunity for all actions after filing child abuse charges, but that one could sue social workers for actions taken before this “if the social worker violated rights that were ‘clearly established.'” Farris tells us that Peter is glad that the “the real damages—the fear which had gripped Casey—could be traced” to Donna and Rita’s visit to Gwen’s home, before any charges were filed, and suddenly I’m wondering if this is why Casey’s experience in foster care was so positive. Perhaps Farris wanted to ensure that it was crystal clear that Casey’s fear came only from that initial visit, and not at all from anything that happened after charges were filed?

But if we’re going to focus on damage to Casey, I’m only more annoyed that we don’t hear her voice. I would much rather hear from Casey than hear Gwen swooning over Peter, who I’m becoming increasingly convinced served as a model for Stephanie Meyer’s irresistible vampire hero, Edward.

Anyway.

Gwen calls Peter that afternoon, and we get this exchange:

“Hello, Gwen. I was just doing some research for you at lunch.”

“Why? I thought everything was over.”

“Well, their case for child abuse is over—although they could appeal. But that’s unlikely. I was researching the possibility of a federal civil rights suit against CPS. You remember, we talked about suing them after we got Casey back. Well, we got her back and I was making plans to go ahead. Do you still want to?”

Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter.

I have a number of lawyers among my regular commenters, and they have pointed out that Peter tends to tell Gwen their legal strategy rather than laying out the options and letting Gwen decide which direction she wants to go. We see that exact same thing here once again—Peter was making plans to sue CPS without even having checked with Gwen whether she wanted to. His question at the end of this bit comes as a bit of an afterthought, and Gwen had clearly forgotten that such a lawsuit was even an option, going by her confusion that Peter was still doing research “for her.”

Anyway, Gwen’s response is unsurprising:

“I certainly do. Sue them for a gazillion dollars, especially that Corliss woman.”

But this isn’t actually why Gwen is calling, of course. No, Gwen is calling to invite Peter over for dinner with her, Casey, and her parents on Saturday. Because of course she is. Peter accepts without skipping a beat. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” he responds, and his “enthusiastic response” pleases Gwen.

As soon as he hung up the phone he clenched is fist and said, “Yes!”

Danger. Danger. DANGER.

He paced in front of his windows, staring at the ONB Bank Building, a parking garage, and a sliver of Riverfront Park three blocks away. He was definitely going to talk with Aaron about a certain blond client on Friday.

Hey now wait a moment. If Gwen is still his client—and if they sue CPS, she is—wouldn’t it be unethical for them to start a relationship regardless of Peter’s belief in the sinfulness of marrying a divorced woman? But then, legal ethics don’t seem to matter much to Peter. Hopefully they matter a bit more to Aaron.

Next week, we learn that Blackburn’s not happy at Donna for losing the case.