In the Place of Last Things: Excerpts

RUSS LITTLEBURY:
"'You move your weight right out the door and we'll have our chat outside, but you put this in gear and it's auto theft.'
'Just answer me.'
'Go on, get out.'
Russ shifted into reverse and backed out.
'You stupid sonofabitch.'
The street ahead sat down between unbroken banks of exhaust plumes, human shadowfigures ghostly and dumbshow. He eased into motion and then accelerated. For two blocks Bedham spat out stale imprecations until Russ levelled out for the first clear intersection and locked up, spinning the both of them a full panoramic of the town and laying them up against a curb.
'Now you're a dead man,' said Bedham.
Russ reached for the gearshift."

This quotation shows that Russ is rather forceful. He will go to whatever means he thinks necesarry to get what he wants done, even if it involves violence. In this particular excerpt, Russ essentially car-jacks the tombstone engraver's truck, and takes him for a very literal spin. This is his way of intimidating Bedham, the engraver, into telling him why the name Richard Owen MacDonald is engraved on the back of Mike's tombstone. Russ, although forceful and violent, had a great sense of duty towards his father in his final time, and wanted his funeral to be special. Having another name on the back of your tombstone doesn't exactly make your burial place a place special to you, and so Russ was unhappy with that.

JACK MARKS:
"Jack took me to the rodeo today. August 3rd. He bought me a Bailey hat and showed me how to wear the brim. We were watching the bullriders and a man behind us was making fun of one of the clowns, he was pretty loud and mean, and when Jack turned around to say something he just turned back and took me buy the arm and made us leave. It took awhile before he'd tell me what happened but he said there was too much past in his life for it not to come back at him, sometimes the same, sometimes with different faces. The people he met were never really new, just old souls returned, even his own old souls."

This excerpt is from Lea's diary describing an outing she took with Jack Marks before he ran off. The events in this particular quotation show that Jack has no inhibitions about lying to Lea (or to anyone else ). He clearly knew the man behind them from some of his former (possibley illegal) dealings, and since we find out Jack is a fairly sketchy guy, it wouldn't be a surprise if Jack owed this man money or was in some way in trouble with him. Jack likely needed to leave the rodeo before the man found out who he was, and he couldn't leave without Lea, so he fabricated a story related to his "experience" with God to get Lea to come along with him.

TARA HARDING:
"She asked him to haul up her briefcase from the back seat.
'Open the back zipper pocket.'
He did so and withdrew a ten-by-twelve sheet with a colour image of a young smiling couple seated on a plaid couch. The man's plastic frames, tinted lenses, and the woman's blue bell-bottoms dated them in the seventies. Her brown hair, parted in the middle, fell to either side of her bright face. The man's hair was combed back, not especially long. Because he was smiling Russ almost didn't recognize him.
'I take it you wouldn't have this if there wasn't a bad ending to their story.'"

This quotation is from the later part of the book, when Russ and Tara meet in Vancouver. The picture is an old photgraph of John and Beth Overstreet. Tara has been obsessed with John, and then Beth, and now Beth's father William for longer than she's known Russ: more than a year. This shows that Tara holds on to the things she believes in, to the point where it could be considered an obsession. She finds it hard that Russ doesn't like that she does this, but in the end doesn't particularly care what he says. She does what she wants anyways.

LEA BOLLINS:
"He pointed to the sky and looked up, then stepped forward.
When he performed the little affirmation she had taught him, Lea wanted to scream and almost got out of the car, but a part of her wanted to watch, wanted to believe she couldn't change his course any more than she could that of a character in a movie. The Lord was guiding this and she must trust in Him. He had put the two of them together. The Lord had chosen for her deliverance and protection this manboy, and though maybe it was hard to see him getting a lot of respect, in scripture it said you who make yourself like a child will be greatest in the kingdom of Heaven."

This excerpt is taken from the middle part of the book, when Skidder brings Lea with him to retrieve Mr. Bickles' ashes. She doesn't particularly want Skidder to commit a crime, but because he says a a prayer and a little affirmation, she thinks it is the work of God that he should do this. She feels that everything is guiding by God, or is the Will of God, and this makes her very gullible, and easily persuaded or deceived.

MIKE LITTLEBURY:
"When they headed out on the road again, they talked about Mike and how hard it was to read his condition, which in spite of having stopped treatments hadn't seemed to have changed much since Christmas."

This quotation is from the period in the book when Russ is driving Jean down to her place in Tucson. They inevitably start to talk about Mike, and his sickness. The fact that Mike has stopped treatment but has not worsened in condition is a sign that he is very strong mentally and emotionally. He is able to maintain his health for a while anyways just by taking his pills and by imagining his tumour getting smaller and smaller everyday. He will eventually die, however, and he is willing to accept this, as he is very religous, and is at peace with the idea of dying.