Structure

The novel extract “Grace” by Philipp Meyer begins by introducing the setting and the main character, Grace:

The main road south of Buell angled away from the river to cut through a steep sunless valley; it was a narrow fast road with the trees tight along both sides. She passed vacant hamlets, abandoned service stations, an exhausted coal mine with a vast field of tailings that stretched on forever like sand dunes, gray and dry and not even the weeds would grow on them.

The beginning of the extract sets a dark and gloomy atmosphere, which is further explored in the story. The description also hints at the decline of the American steel industry, which Grace will continue to think about the story progresses. 

The extract introduces several flashbacks that further illustrate Grace’s situation. For example, a flashback reveals that Grace has either developed arthritis or a “repetitive stress injury” that affects her hands and, implicitly, her work: 

Once, a union organizer had come poking around the shop, waiting outside the front door at closing time, he was the one who'd suggested that her condition might have been a repetitive stress injury– not arthritis. That's common, he said. Arthritis at your age isn't. Unf...