Yes, all of the people seemed pretty lonely and isolated. Most teachers I know connect with other teachers and/or students and/or community. A lot of loners who were attracted to one another somehow seems less plausible.
Here ya go, Kirkus summary of “ Earth’s the right place for Love - “ Elizabeth Berg
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There are also 2 sequels to “The Story of Arthur Truluv” – “Night of Miracles” and “The Confession Club.”
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The summaries are reminding me of The Mitford Series by Jan Karon. I haven’t read any of those books, but aren’t they sort of the same? Feel-good novels with overlapping characters in a small southern town?
There was one part of The Story of Arthur Truluv that really resonated with me. From p. 195:
“Oh, Arthur,” Lucille says. “Now you’ve gone and made me sad, thinking about how there’s nobody we can invite to Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Why can’t we invite the mailman?”
She drops her hand onto her pile of cookbooks. “You can’t just invite anyone! We don’t even know the mailman! Who is the mailman?”
“Well, he’s a real nice fellow,” Arthur says. “You know him! He’s tall, slender. Red hair. He’s got a beard. His name is…Eddie! That’s it! His name is Eddie."
When my husband and I were college seniors, newly married with a baby, we rented a couple of rooms from an elderly widower. He made fast friends with our infant daughter and became like another grandpa to her. On our first Thanksgiving, too cash-strapped to travel home, we decided to cook a holiday dinner for him, ourselves, and the other boarder (whose home was in another country). And here’s the clincher: We invited the mailman. Really! And he came! We were a motley crew of different ages, backgrounds and nationalities, but we laughed all through dinner, and 40 years later, it’s still a memory of one of our happiest Thanksgiving gatherings.
(Sadly, I can no longer remember the name of the mailman, but now I’ll think of him as ‘Eddie.’ 
)
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LOVE your story. Simple times, simple pleasures!
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Awesome, story. 
@Mary13 that is a beautiful and relevant story ! Love it so much❤️
Amazing what is revealed via these discussions ! The mailman came to thanksgiving dinner- I’ll never look at our mailman around thanksgiving time the same now 
who knows what lovely person may have extended an invitation to thanksgiving dinner 
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Did anyone notice how quickly Arthur died? (I mean, at the very end – he was probably actually dying for a long time.)
Maddy goes into labor on Christmas Eve, and she and Lucille head to the hospital. At that moment, Arthur is at the cemetery, telling Nola that he won’t be able to visit her anymore. When Maddy returns – which would presumably be the next day, Christmas – the description is:
It doesn’t take long to get home, and when Maddy comes into the house, she climbs the stairs to Arthur’s room before she even takes her coat off. He can’t get out of bed anymore. He’s so beautiful now, he looks like he’s made of marble, and his eyes seem always full of light.
Then in the epilogue when Maddy goes to the cemetery, we learn that Arthur died on December 29th. Poor guy only had a few days with little Nola #2, but I guess he was eager to see Nola #1. Do you agree with his decision to not even see a doctor when it was clear something was amiss?
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This reminds me of Dr Zeke Emanuel’s famous 2014 statement he wouldn’t seek medical tests or interventions past 75.
Just found this updated article now that he is 10 years away, and if he changes his stance as he nears 75.
Does Ezekiel Emanuel still plan to refuse medical treatment after 75?.
“ Background
In the original 2014 article, Emanuel wrote that he would refuse all medical interventions—including antibiotics and vaccinations—after he turned 75 years old, saying he believes older Americans live too long in a deteriorating state.
“Doubtless, death is a loss,” he wrote. “But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us if not disabled then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived . . . We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.”
Emanuel clarified in the article that he would not end his life at 75, but rather that he would stop taking efforts to prolong his life.
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I was also thinking about Dr. Emanuel when reading about Arthur’s decision to not seek care.
After being through a bunch of cancer dxs with elderly family members, it’s been our experience that those that didn’t have treatment/intervention had better quality of life than those that did, and more importantly with similar duration. IMO, Arthur’s decision was reasonable.
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I agree with Arthur’s decision up to a point. If he had gone to the doctor and found out he had terminal cancer, then I would understand and respect a decision not to seek further care. But what if he had something easily treatable (only terminal if untreated)?
My Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 80 years old. She had a partial mastectomy with a quick recovery and lived happily with a good quality of life until age 97. That’s 17 years. What if Arthur could have seen Nola grow up to age 17? So I’m a little torn on this issue. I would have liked a diagnosis. 
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In other words, an informed decision.
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I agree that it makes sense to see an MD, get a diagnosis and THEN make a choice. Knowing you have a condition allows you to decide IF you want to treat and what you want to do.
Since Arthur appeared pretty clear-headed, he was entitled to make his own choice, even though I would have chosen differently.
My H is over 75 and he still regularly sees all his MDs. We want to stick around to help with any grandkids as well as spend time with family & loved ones. I would be sad if H decided to stop seeing his docs and not stay as healthy as he can so we can have as many good years together as possible. Once one gets a serious diagnosis, weighing of pros & cons of treatment makes sense.
Cancer CAN be effectively treated in some cases and not so much in others. Much depends on type of cancer, when it’s caught and general health of patient. Pros & cons should be carefully weighed by patient.
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For me and H, I don’t agree about stopping vaccines or antibiotics at a magical age, nor seeing MDs. Antibiotics vs and vaccines are very effective and don’t seem to have terrible side effects and improve quality of life.
Cancer treatments, extensive invasive surgeries and more dramatic treatments, like an organ transplant, are definitely something I’d have to weigh more carefully. I do know people weighing organ transplants and some who have successfully had transplants. Definitely requires a lot of careful thought.
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Baking is Lucille’s gift – she’s like an artist or a writer with a passion for their craft. She’s great at it and generous with the results – which is her main redeeming characteristic. Orange blossom cookies are the trade-off for her snoring.
Speaking of one’s craft … do we know what Arthur did for a living? That can be an essential part of a person’s history / life experience, but I’m drawing a blank.
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@Mary13 At first I thought we were never told what Arthur did, but then I remembered his rose garden, which made me remember this: “We all have our gifts,” Nola used to say, and she was right. Arthur’s gift is working the land; he was a groundskeeper for the parks before he retired many years ago. He still keeps a nice rose garden in the front of his house; the vegetable garden in the back he has let go."
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Thank you!
I hadn’t remembered that passage. Thanks for solving that mystery.
1.What did the epigraphs mean to you before you read the book? Did they seem to hint at any major themes in The Story of Arthur Truluv? How did the meaning of the epigraphs change for you, after you finished the book?
Epigraphs, you say? Ha, I’d forgotten they were even there. I blame that on the Kindle … it’s ever forward with that device. But I rolled on back and here they are:
We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars – everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. —THORNTON WILDER, Our Town
Act well your part, there all the honour lies. —ALEXANDER POPE, “An Essay on Man"
I just started Tom Lake, so it was a coincidence to read the Our Town quote.
I think that quote reflects the something that Arthur feels when he’s in the cemetery. He knows in his bones that the end isn’t the end.
Contrast that with Lucille’s thinking:
“He’s not with Nola! She’s dead! She was a nice woman, I know he loved her very much, but she is D-E-A-D!”
“I guess not to him,” Maddy says. (p. 208)
There’s another quote from Our Town that reminds me even more of Arthur:
Emily:
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?Stage Manager:
No. Saints and poets, maybe – they do some.
I think that as Arthur aged, he gradually moved into the “saints and poets” category, realizing life while he lived it.
As for the Alexander Pope quote, that embodies Arthur as well. You don’t need a big life, with fame and fortune – just a life lived with integrity, in the service of others. That’s Arthur.
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