42 pages • 1 hour read
The Story of Arthur Truluv
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Pages 3-48Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 3-16 Summary
Content Warning: This guide and its source material briefly describe an attempted death by suicide.
Set in Missouri, The Story of Arthur Truluv opens with Arthur Moses, an 85-year-old widower who lost his wife, Nola, six months prior. Every day, he takes the bus to visit Nola’s grave and talk to her over lunch. He also regularly reads the inscriptions on other graves and tries to imagine what those people’s lives were like. Everything has changed for him after Nola’s death; while he inspects a dandelion, he thinks about how nothing is the same without her: “Seeing the daffodil with Nola gone is not the same, it’s like he’s seeing only part of it” (7). He often sees a young woman sitting in different places around the ceremony and staring off into space. He waves at her one day, but she seems frightened by the gesture, and so he turns away. The narration switches to focus on the girl, 17-year-old Maddy Harris, who skips school to visit the cemetery and take pictures. She finds the cemetery comforting, telling her boyfriend Anderson that she finds it “peaceful being in a cemetery with the dead. Beautiful, even” (9). Anderson, who is older than Maddy and works at Walmart, scoffs at the statement and finds it weird. Maddy’s mom was killed in a car accident when Maddy was two weeks old, and her father doesn’t speak to her much. She doesn’t have friends at school, but she likes her English teacher, Mr. Lyons, and he praises her photography. When Arthur is back home, he thinks about Maddy and worries that he scared her. He imagines talking to her about the stories he’s created for the people in the cemetery and gets the sense that she wouldn’t think it was odd.
Pages 17-30 Summary
Arthur’s neighbor, 83-year-old retired teacher Lucille Howard, routinely invites him over to visit on her porch; though Arthur finds her tiresome and bossy and often wishes she wouldn’t, he also finds it “odd, then, that at the thought of seeing her, his weary old heart accelerates” (17). Lucille tries to connect with him by baking him cookies and making small talk. One night while visiting, Arthur has to abruptly leave to rush to the bathroom after an upset stomach, and he worries that suddenly leaving has offended Lucille, who has tears in her eyes as he departs. Back home, Arthur cares for the cat he shared with Nola, Gordon; they could not have children, something Arthur is still sad about, especially as he grieves Nola’s loss.
The narration turns to Maddy, who calls Anderson to ask if she should sneak out and meet him. Though he sounds hesitant, he agrees, and the two meet and go to a nearby park. After she performs oral sex on him, he tells her that he wants to break up because he has found a new girl from work in whom he’s interested. Maddy leaves his car, running away from him through the woods. On the edge of the woods, she sees a doe staring at her and wonders if it’s her mom there to offer her comfort and reassurance. She remembers watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as a child and hearing “the soothing voice of a man she wished her father were like” telling her to look for the helpers and find hope through them (28). She finds that hope in the doe and the comforting thought that her mother is there to help. At home, her dad waits for her in her bedroom. He asks where she was, and Maddy responds honestly. When he tries to take her hand in his and tell her he loves her, she stiffens at the attempt for affection: “over the years, she has built a little fort against wanting any of that from him…it is too late now. The fort is impenetrable. She is safe inside it” (29). He makes her promise never to sneak out and meet a boy again, and she agrees.
Pages 31-48 Summary
Before Arthur takes the bus to visit Nola’s grave, he stops at Lucille’s house to explain that he had been indisposed and was too embarrassed to tell her. When she doesn’t answer the door, he pokes his head in, but she admonishes him for opening her door and tells him that she’s going out, shutting the door in his face. He is disappointed, but his spirits lift once he enters the cemetery; having lunch with Nola “is his greatest pleasure and he doesn’t care who knows it” (32). He sees Maddy and waves again, and this time she waves back and comes over to him. Arthur introduces himself and explains how he comes every day to have lunch with Nola and talk to her. When it starts raining, he asks Maddy if she would like to ride the bus back to his house; Maddy agrees.
Maddy shares that she got dumped last night while Arthur starts to prepare tomato soup for lunch, hoping that he has matching bowls and enough milk to make the soup. Arthur tells her that he thinks he was dumped, too, and says he’ll share about it if she will.
The narration shifts to Lucille, who is returning home at 11:30 that night. As she looks in the mirror and prepares for bed, she feels like two people: the current version of herself and the younger one, with “her cheeks full and pink, her skin dewy, her shoulder-length hair chestnut-colored” (43). She thinks about the man she just reunited with, her high school sweetheart Frank Pearson, who lives in San Diego and recently reached out to her in a letter; his wife, Sue, died a year prior. Frank had dumped Lucille for Sue many years ago, and Lucille thinks he must regret letting her go. With the promise of a renewed relationship, Lucille vows to go on a diet and share all her baked goods with Arthur, who she bets “misses her cookies like crazy. Just like a man, doesn’t know how much he needs you until he sees how much he needs you” (48).
Pages 3-48 Analysis
The opening pages of the novel introduce the three main characters, Arthur, Maddy, and Lucille, and situate their experiences in relation to one another. Berg also establishes their characterizations, both more broadly from the third person narrator and, subsequently, in their internal thoughts about one another. Arthur, for example, feels at times irritated with Lucille while also experiencing a simultaneous romantic spark. Maddy is initially aloof with Arthur, and Arthur finds this worrisome and hopes he hasn’t frightened her. Even before Arthur and Maddy connect, it is established that Maddy is often wandering at the cemetery, characterizing her as a loner who values solitude and who may be grappling with loss. Berg particularly establishes a likable, sympathetic lead in the title character of Arthur, who is friendly with those around him and who visits his wife’s grave every day. It is through these characters that Berg draws the reader into the narrative. The story is primarily driven by the emotional connections between these characters.
The setting of The Story of Arthur Truluv is noteworthy because there is nothing particularly significant about where the novel takes place, underscoring the universality of the narrative. There are no unique or specific markers about the location of a small town in Missouri, which keeps the focus on the storytelling and characterization. It is within this simplistic setting that normal aspects of life—loss, pregnancy, adolescent struggles, familial strife—all take place. The opening passages introduce the structure of the novel, with the narration shifting back and forth between the perspectives of Arthur, Maddy, and Lucille. Berg’s storytelling and spare style lend a profoundness to the ordinary events of the novel; she uses clear and simple diction to illustrate her characters’ lives, which makes Arthur, Maddy, and Lucille accessible characters with whom readers can easily emotionally connect.
The opening section of the novel introduces the theme of Coping with Grief and Finding New Beginnings, as it shows both Arthur and Maddy’s experiences with loss. Despite their varying ages and experiences, both characters feel the presence of the person they lost. Arthur keeps Nola alive by talking to and about her, recalling the events of their past life while keeping her up to date on present occurrences. Maddy draws on her mother’s memory and feels her closest when she needs guidance, comfort, and reassurance from a maternal figure. Berg uses the figurative language of a glow to demonstrate how both characters encounter the ones they lost: Arthur feels like Nola’s spirit “glows in him and around him still and forever” (34), while Maddy “feels her mother sometimes as a glow in her brain” (28). Arthur also feels companionship for the first time in a while when he invites Maddy to have lunch: “He remembers now with something like a full-body flush, he remembers what it means to share something with someone, the particular alchemy that can light things up” (39). This initial meeting and connection originate the broader theme of The Transformative Power of Companionship and Chosen Families because Maddy and Arthur’s instant connection, comfort with one another, and ease of conversation will be the catalyst for the creation of their family unit. Maddy is not disconcerted by Arthur’s penchant for speaking to the headstones and his late wife; instead, she is curious, asking “a child’s question, innocent and absent of judgement” (35). While Anderson finds Maddy’s interest in the cemetery weird, Arthur does not; despite their differences, they share more in common than Maddy and her boyfriend or Maddy and her father. This relationship is the foundation on which their chosen family will be built.
The beginning of Maddy’s character development forms a significant part of the novel’s opening section. There are key facets of her characterization in pivotal moments at the start; notably, she is both desperate for Anderson’s love and attention and reeling from her breakup with him. Her home life is marked by loss; her mother’s death prompted her father’s isolation and tentative caretaking, as he frequently keeps Maddy at arm’s length to emotionally protect himself. Maddy is someone in desperate need of affection and nurturing, and she tries to find it in a boyfriend who is portrayed as egotistical and self-centered, and who uses her and breaks her heart. When she meets Arthur, he recognizes that need in her, seeing her “embarrassed, a little folded in on herself. She’s a fragile one, this one” (35). Unlike the other men in her life, Anderson and Steven, Arthur sees Maddy for who she truly is: a grieving young woman who has been ostracized by others but is still eager to connect and who is full of potential.
This section also introduces the motif of Mr. and Mrs. Hamburger, a plastic figurine depicting a married couple with linked arms. Arthur and Nola got the figurine in 1955 or 1956, and Arthur remembers the night they got it at a local diner after having a big fight. It is a fond reminder of Nola and her habit of collecting figurines, and the piece also represents the two of them as a married couple, linked for life.
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