42 pages • 1 hour read
The Story of Arthur Truluv
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Pages 103-163 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 103-120 Summary
After Lucille prepares dinner and an elaborate dessert for herself, Frank, and Arthur, she gets a phone call from Frank telling her that he’s going to the hospital. He tells her not to worry, and that this has happened before. He predicts they will likely just give him more medicine. Lucille goes to the ER, where a Code Blue is called for the room Frank is in. Lucille sees Frank’s daughter, Sandy, in the waiting room, and when she introduces herself as Frank’s fiancée, Sandy denies knowing anything about her. Soon, Lucille learns that Frank has died.
Arthur meets Maddy’s father for coffee, where he learns that Maddy has run away from home. Steven explains that she calls every day but refuses to come home; he tells Arthur that he said some things to her he shouldn’t have, and he just wants Arthur to keep an eye out for her and let him know if she needs more money. He does not ask Arthur to try and get Maddy to come back home. Arthur sees Lucille haphazardly park her car that night; she explains that they gave her medicine to calm down and tells him that Frank had a heart attack and died. Arthur stays with her in the yard, comforting her.
In early July, Arthur finally sees Maddy at the cemetery, where she explains that she is pregnant and has been staying with her English teacher, Mr. Lyons, and his wife. She is seeing a social worker, who has arranged things such that Anderson will have no legal claim on the baby. Maddy has also applied to an art college that has a dorm for single mothers, and she will begin there the spring after the baby is born. Maddy asks if she could come work for Arthur as a housekeeper in exchange for room and board and he agrees, looking down at Nola’s headstone and saying, “Isn’t that something? We have a family” (120).
Pages 121-142 Summary
Arthur brings lunch to Lucille, whose house is incredibly messy and has a terrible odor as she’s been neglecting it. She tells Arthur about how she decided she would be better off if she died by suicide, so she baked a cake and put every pill she had it in, and then ate the whole cake while singing hymns about her trials soon being over. However, she threw it all up. She tells Arthur: “when Frank came into my life, well, it was like plugging in the Christmas tree. And then…lights off! All the lights are off now. And I really don’t want to live anymore” (127). Lucille wishes she had a purpose for her life, and Arthur encourages her to teach baking classes as a volunteer. She decides that would be a good idea and starts making plans and brainstorming recipes. Arthur invites Lucille over for lunch and offers Maddy as a housekeeper to help Lucille get her home back in order. Maddy settles into the upstairs room at Arthur’s house. At lunch, Lucille fusses over her and Maddy thinks: “how wonderful to be paid attention to. How wonderful to be cared for, even if it’s by a couple of goofy old people. She adores Arthur” (138). Lucille prepares for her first cooking class, which she has advertised around town. She considers how carefully and lovingly she approaches each recipe, making everything from scratch, and she only thinks of Frank a little. She plans to cook and care for Maddy and her baby when she (Lucille is positive it’s a girl) is born.
Pages 143-163 Summary
Lucille’s first baking class was a mild success. She had one attendee who agreed to come back the following week with friends. Lucille thinks about how she should move in with Arthur and host her cooking classes there, thinking, “there’s something nice about heading into what are arguably the final few years of your life in the company of one kind person, who can relate to all that you’re going through, and vice versa” (145). When she calls Arthur to ask him, he agrees, though he soon feels dread when having to tell Maddy, worried that it will upset the functional little system they have going. At first, Maddy feels she should move out and packs her things, but she soon comes around after Arthur tells her that he wonders if Lucille is lonely. She also shows him that she took Mr. and Mrs. Hamburger from Nola’s grave, and Arthur reveals that he meant the figurine to be a present for Maddy in the first place. She tells Arthur a story from when she was four years old and told her father that she wanted to die because she had learned about heaven and hell and wanted to join her mother in heaven. Rather than comforting her, her father reacted by pushing her off his lap and yelling at her: “Nobody asks to be born! Nobody! You get here and you just have to deal with what you get!” (157). She has been working with her counselor to understand why her father treated her as a burden rather than a living extension of the love he lost. Maddy and Arthur help Lucille move into a spare bedroom. Maddy is at Walmart one day when she runs into Anderson, who tells her that he came to see her and wants to meet up. When he asks her if she’s still pregnant, she tells him the baby isn’t his and to leave her alone.
Pages 103-163 Analysis
In this section, Arthur’s character development deepens as he selflessly gives to Maddy and Lucille, helping them find their way in a new landscape. Berg displays Arthur’s capacity for caretaking and love, which are key components that make up his story and his character. Though Arthur never stops visiting Nola’s grave, he now has a new outlet for his compassion in his companionship with Maddy and Lucille. This newfound priority for Arthur is the first step in nurturing a life beyond Nola’s death. In his marriage to Nola, they were never able to have kids. Arthur is at peace with being a paternal figure in Maddy’s life and providing at least friendship with Lucille, forming a family unit he has longed for.
In his caretaking of Maddy, Arthur not only agrees to meet with Steven, but his immediate acceptance of Maddy’s desire to live with him demonstrates his loving nature and devotion to her. When he learns from Steven that Maddy’s mother died, it gives him a new understanding of Maddy’s interest in cemeteries and melancholic disposition. Arthur defends Maddy when Steven questions why she would enjoy visiting a cemetery, feeling offended on her behalf and his. This interaction underscores how little Steven knows about his daughter; Arthur has more protective instincts and caretaking capabilities than her own father. Arthur “finds it strange that Steven didn’t ask Arthur to urge Maddy to come home” (111) and wonders why he doesn’t just go to her school and talk to her. Here, Arthur’s insight allows him to excel as a pseudo-father/grandfather figure for Maddy and deepens their bond. Steven is not sure what to make of Arthur’s presence in Maddy’s life, confirming that he’s not “one of her boyfriends” (108). Arthur’s closeness with Maddy and new understanding of her family dynamic show how Maddy is now moving away from her familial connection to her father and choosing one that suits her better. Maddy and Arthur will continue to integrate their lives outside of societal convention and despite what others think or perceive, highlighting The Transformative Power of Companionship and Chosen Families.
Arthur, Lucille, and Steven all connect over loss in this section, and it demonstrates the diversity of experiences they have in Coping with Grief and Finding New Beginnings. When Lucille loses Frank, she must grapple with both The Experiences and Emotions of Aging and her grief; she feels that Frank was her last chance at romantic love, telling him, “no one even sees you when you get old except for people who knew you when you were young” (114). She’s concerned that she is facing irrelevance now that Frank is gone. She attempts death by suicide after his death, because despite their short engagement, he made her feel complete in a way that she needs and wants in her life. Arthur has an opportunity to help Lucille by sharing the knowledge he has learned in his own grief journey, explaining how it “took a long time for him to shift things around so that he could still love and honor Nola but also love and honor life, but it happened. And it will happen to her” (115). In contrast, Steven has never found a new beginning or way to keep his wife’s memory alive, telling Arthur, “I don’t like to talk about it. Or her. I never talk about her, really” (109), though he acknowledges that the pain of losing her never goes away. Steven has not developed coping strategies to deal with his grief, whereas Lucille decides that action and usefulness are best. Berg highlights the multitude of ways that people move forward, not on from, their grief or, in some cases, don’t; each approach has its own set of challenges and successes.
Maddy undergoes a significant transformation in this section as she is empowered to make plans for her future and shows agency by choosing to both receive help from others and help herself. She listens to the social worker’s advice to work for and live with Arthur and follows Mr. Lyons’s advice to apply for the art college. The baby acts as a catalyst for her to take action, and this will result in not only the formation of her chosen family but also a more promising future for Maddy and her child. She is coming of age and gets to rewrite her story, no longer trapped by the bullies at school or the tension at home.
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