Everybody's Fool

If Raymer is the titular fool, Sully’s character clearly reflects the title of the first novel in the trilogy, which featured him as the primary protagonist: Nobody’s Fool. The phrase has two meanings. Possibly, the person in question so utterly eschews foolishness that nobody would dream of calling him a fool. On the other hand, it might mean that the person is indeed a fool, but belongs to no one. Sully believes he fits the first interpretation, but in reality is better defined by the second. Divorced, separated from Ruth, and only casually employed, Sully is in many ways the opposite of the public-spirited Raymer. Indeed, in the first novel, the two are frequently hostile, as the feckless Sully delights in baiting the over-serious police chief.

However, in this novel, the two men become parallels for each other. Just like Raymer, Sully becomes less isolated and emotionally disconnected from his community. Also, while not officially occupying a public role, Sully plays a role in solving some of the disturbances that Raymer has to deal with, as he becomes involved in controlling the behavior of Roy Purdy. Despite no longer being romantically involved with Ruth, Sully still cares enough about Ruth and Janie to risk his life trying to protect them from the violent Roy. At first, Sully alternates between a half-heartedly cruel detachment and a reluctant but authentic compassion for the two Rubs, both of whom are helpless, vulnerable and dependent on him. However, eventually, Sully comes to see the human Rub as a person worth supporting, both by renaming the dog and by encouraging him to bring his wife Bootsie out for a night on the town.

Sully’s former lover Ruth feels intensely frustrated and over-burdened. Her home life is difficult because she is unhappily married to Zack, a hoarder with a strange business that seems hopeless, and because she is still haunted by the spirit of her domineering mother-in-law. At the same time, Ruth is anxious about her daughter Janey, who is a victim of domestic abuse, and her granddaughter Tina, who has several health problems.

Like Sully, Ruth alternates between bitter frustration at and tender solicitude for the vulnerable individuals who depend on her. Like Raymer, she fantasizes about an alternative, carefree life in a parallel universe where she might live free of her heavy burden of responsibilities—a dream that plays into the novel’s theme of Alternate Identities and Fate.

Although she does not occupy an official position of public responsibility, in the café, Ruth often acts as a maternal confidante. Like Raymer and Sully, she is compassionate almost in spite of herself, even worrying about Roy’s welfare and picking him up after the wall collapses at the Lofts.

Roy is the novel’s most salient antagonist. The abusive ex-boyfriend of Ruth’s daughter Janey, Roy returns to North Fork at the start of the novel after being released from prison. On his return, despite his claims to have been rehabilitated, Roy menaces Ruth, reestablishes contact with Janey, brutally beats Ruth for intervening, abuses his new girlfriend Cora, and then makes plans to murder Sully.

If Raymer, Gus, Sully, and Ruth intermittently curse their innate propensity for compassion and empathy, wishing they could be just a little bit less engaged with the world around them, Roy Purdy personifies what happens when empathy is lacking completely. While both Sully and Roy’s childhoods were marked by their fathers’ abuse, unlike Roy, Sully has retained a capacity for fellowship and sympathy. Instead, Roy is depicted as sociopathic—a man who demands everyone around him acquiesce to his whims and who responds with violence when he runs into resistance.

Roy takes the antisocial tendencies of Sully and Raymer’s alter-ego Dougie to their logical extreme. Roy’s governing emotions are bitterness and rage. Whereas Sully’s father tried to gain money by selling access to the Sans Souci, Roy’s instinct is to urinate on the hotel’s fresh-made beds—a destructive impulse that benefits no one, and only expresses his contempt for everything. Roy responds to kindness with brutality and violence, calling other people’s attempts to treat him as a fellow human “something with no name” (435): He cannot understand the sympathy that inspired a waitress to defend him from his cruel father, or the love that drives Cora to trust in him against all odds, actions that occasion vicious reactions rather than develop bonds.