Mr. Willy and Arthur
Fairleigh Brooks, 2016
Smashwords
48 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781310034541 (e-book)
Summary
Mr. Willy & Arthur is a novella about an imagined meeting between Boo Radley and Willy Loman.
I took the liberty of giving Boo the gumption to escape Maycomb, and of extending Willy's life five days.
Boo becomes an itinerant field hand. His new life takes him in and out of functioning families, and he finds this satisfying. Willy finds himself with $500 in severance pay, and decides to return to Florida, where he had been on vacation recently.
North of Raleigh one rainy night the two meet. This is the story of their few days together.
Author Bio
• Birth—November 20, 1953
• Where—Louisville, Kentucky, USA
• Education—B.S., Spalding University
• Currently—lives in Louisville, Kentucky
Fairleigh Brooks is the author of the novel, Notes of a Would-Be Astronaut, and a collection of short stories, Lady Chatterley's Pool Boy. His e-books include the novella, Mr. Willy & Arthur, and another short story collection, A Presentation of Short Stories Without Regard to Marketing.
Brooks has written feature stories for a local alt weekly, LEO. For several years, he was a commentator for a local National Public Radio affiliate WFPL. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Discussion Questions
1. Do you think Boo Radley, somewhere and at some level, could have been prodded into finding the fortitude to leave Maycomb and strike out on his own?
2. Since the story is based on already existing characters from earlier writers, did you find each character, in new situations, remaining connected to his original portrayal?
3. Do you think Boo, however simple his life, found a real freedom, perhaps of the sort some of us might like to have?
4. Did you find a sense of Southern and Northern culture meeting?
5. Did you have any doubt, while reading, about Willy's fate?
6. Today's lives are radically different from Willy Loman's, obviously. Still, how alike with Willy's are our present lives in terms of drive, achieving what we want, and achieving what really matters?
7. What did you both learn outright and infer from both characters that perhaps you hadn't from the original works?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)