Question 1: Most Important Character?

[Ashley]

Q from Meghan: Which character do you think has the most impact on the story? Why?

[Alisha]

I think the Automator had the biggest negative impact on the story (see my answer in the villain section!) His corruption set the tone for many of the things that were wrong with the school.

As far as positive impact- I keep going back to Howard (perhaps because he stood up to the Automator?) His quest for his own purpose in his life and making meaning of things was paralleled with the boys, yet he had a bit more life experience to think clearly and make sense of it all.

[Lauren]

I'm going with Tom. Without Tom, Howard's days at Seabrook as a student are markedly different. Without Tom's accident, Howard doesn't earn the nickname "the Coward." Shortly after his suspension with pay, Howard watches Guido (the instigator of the bungee jumping accident) on the television and has the following realization:

"Moving forward. After the bungee jump, Guido had relocated to a private school in Barbados, never to be seen again. It hadn’t made much of a difference: in the eyes of the school, Howard was really the one to blame. Cowardice, that was the unforgivable sin for a Seabrook boy. Most people were kind enough not to say it to his face, but he knew it with every breath he took, and he has lived with it every day and night since. But Guido did not live with it. Guido moved forward. He wasn’t about to let one fleeting episode determine the whole trajectory of his life thereafter (574)."

(Also? I love the cowardice line - it says so much about the book and its setting but it's buried as an almost throw-away line.) Maybe Howard would have still ended up back at Seabrook teaching, but would he have been suspended? Critically injured?

Then we have Skippy. Without Tom, Skippy's not molested, doesn't start popping pills, doesn't throw up in Father Green's class ... as readers, we never had a chance to see a version of Skippy from before the molestation. But I get the feeling that Skippy was markedly different than the adrift version we see in the novel. For that matter, would he have been as interested in Lori if not for the molestation? If that's the case, then he never crosses Carl's path.

I'd also argue that Father Green and the Automator would be in different positions without Tom. Father Green wouldn't have taken the fall, and I think he'd likely still be teaching and doing his volunteer work (to say nothing of alive). As for the Automator, he wouldn't have had to deal with the crisis - he'd still be an unbearable prick (excuse my language), but he wouldn't have enacted such a massive cover up.

Going back to the cowardice line: Tom's supposedly the model of what a Seabrook man should be. Yet if he hadn't been so foolhardy as a teenager, he doesn't have his accident. He's the model but he's also the instigator of so much tragedy and heartbreak. He's the lynchpin to the story and Murray's message.

[Meghan]

Lauren I could not have said it any better....and I agree 100%-Tom is the perfect villian in this plot line and is the nexus for all the evil that happens through out. Without his role the plot would have been very very very different.

[Carol]

You all have done all the work for me. I can just agree with you on Tom. However, on his plane, I feel Ruprecht was important for the kids on their level.

[Julie]

Lauren- you convinced me too! Very insightful and spot on.

[Ashley]

Why do we think Murray titled it SKIPPY Dies?

[Meghan]

Because Skippy Dying was the chance for all the characters to take action...and it flushed out who amoung them was willing to take a moral stand. Without him dying most of what took place would never have unfolded.

[Carol]

Ruprecht was to me probably the most interesting character of anyone in the book. To see the evolutions he went through before Skippy's death and after caused me to think a lot about what can happen to each of us. We can become better people, we can go in the dumpers, can phase in and phase out until we get a grasp on ourselves. Ruprecht is the one person I would like to see if he was able to get a grip on himself and use that amazing brain and intelligence for something good to himself and for humankind (whatever). Too bad Murray didn't have an Epilog: 10 years later with each of the characters.

[Lauren]

I agree with you, Meghan - but can I also add a cynical note?

For marketing purposes, Skippy Dies is a damn good title. It hooks people in - I've told a few people I'm reading it, and it's interesting to watch how they respond. Without fail, they're intrigued in a way I don't think they would be if the title was "Seabrook" or even "Ruprecht Van Doren and the String Theory Postulate."