15-3 15-3 Bobbie Ann Manson

Bobbie Ann Mason writes about blue-collar people in small town and just your normal everyday houses for the average families. Clerk stores workers, waitresses and truck drivers. Men and women who “believe” in progress and are more optimistic in life and the lessons they have learned. She didn’t like television. She believed that it was a waste and was only empty hours. Bobbie grew up in Kentucky. She learned about and met many small-town working people and the culture surrounding her. She spent a lot of time on the farm while growing up in Kentucky. “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason is a story about two common everyday people, Leroy and Norma Jean. Leroy and Norma are husband and wife, he works as a truck driver, and Norma Jean works at the Rexall drugstore. Three months earlier Leroy was hurt in a highway accident that left his leg in pretty bad shape. He can no longer drive his bid rig, so he has been staying at home recuperating. The accident scared him so bad that he’s not really sure that he wants to drive anymore. Leroy like most people who work away from home a lot, started seeing his life and his wife differently. He realized that he had let a lot of things pass him by very quickly while he was out on the long hauls. His wife has been use to him being gone for all these years and it seems that now that Leroy is home he is getting on Norma Jean’s nerves. Leroy is sitting around the house smoking pot and building things with notched popsicle sticks, he tells Norma Jean that he wants to build her a log cabin, she tells him that none of the new subdivisions in their town is going to allow a cabin to be built in them he rides around town and realizes that this is true.Leroy starts to see his wife in a different light, he realizes how much he loves her, but Norma Jean seems to be distant and indifferent towards her husband. She is getting in shape by working out and she is attending classes at college trying to better her career path. Norma Jean’s mother is very judgmental of Norma. She feels as if her mother punishes her when she catches her doing something she thinks she shouldn’t be doing, like smoking. Norma Jean is tired of her life, she wants something different. Leroy knows in his heart that something is different about his wife. He mentions this to him mother-in-law that he thinks their trouble at home and she suggest that he take Norma Jean to Shiloh a small town a few hour up the road from their house. While they are visiting, Shiloh, Norma Jean tells Leroy she wants a divorce. I think he is shocked and in disbelief.