Seventy Times Seven

"Alex Mar's bold yet sensitive account of one of America's youngest death row inmates--and the people whose lives she forever changed--is intimately reported, deeply moving, and unforgettable." --Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road"An absorbing work of social history and a story about the mystery and miracle of forgiveness. This is a book of awesome scope, and it deserves to be read with attention." --Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of the Wolf Hall trilogyA masterful, revelatory work of literary non-fiction about a teenage girl's shocking crime--and its extraordinary aftermathOn a spring afternoon in 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a fifteen-year-old girl kills an elderly woman in a violent home invasion. In a city with a history of racial tensions and white flight, the girl, Paula Cooper, is Black, and her victim, Ruth Pelke, is white and a beloved Bible teacher. The press swoops in.When Paula is sentenced to death, no one decries the impending ex