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Beth Eggers
The oldest of the Eggers children. When Eggers’s mother is in the process of dying, Bill is already twenty-four and working in Washington, D.C. for the Heritage Foundation—Eggers, who has only a vague idea of what his brother does, describes Bill’s job as having “something to do with eastern European economics, privatization, conversion.” When Eggers, Beth, and Toph move to Northern California, Bill relocates to Los Angeles, where he works for another conservative think-tank. For the most part, Bill isn’t present very much, but he is a supportive older brother to all three of his siblings.
Bill Eggers Quotes in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius quotes below are all either spoken by Bill Eggers or refer to Bill Eggers. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4
Quotes
You know, to be honest, though, what I see is less a problem with form, all that garbage, and more a problem of conscience. You’re completely paralyzed with guilt about relating all this in the first place, especially the stuff earlier on. You feel somehow obligated to do it, but you also know that Mom and Dad would hate it, would crucify you […]. But then again, I should say, and Bill and Beth would say—well, probably not Bill, but definitely Beth—that your guilt, and their disapproval, is a very middlebrow, middle-class, midwestern sort of disapproval. It’s superstition as much as anything—like the primitives who fear the camera will take their soul. You struggle with a guilt both Catholic and unique to the home in which you were raised. Everything there was a secret—for instance, your father being in AA was not to be spoken of, ever, while he was in and after he stopped attending. You never told even your closest friends about anything that happened inside that house. And now you alternately rebel against and embrace that kind of suppression.
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Bill Eggers Character Timeline in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The timeline below shows where the character Bill Eggers appears in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
Eggers is home from college for winter break. His older brother, Bill, has just returned to D.C., where he works for something Eggers says has to do...
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...he and Beth will have to call people before she does. They’ll have to call Bill and their mother’s former volleyball teammates and her coworkers. How, he wonders, will they have...
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...the minister, who hadn’t known his father because his father was a staunch atheist. Then Bill gave a eulogy, and though he was good in front of crowds, he was perhaps...
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Chapter 6
...to hit them rather hard, often smacking them over the head. At some point, though, Bill started laughing when she did this, ducking away and turning it into a joke. The...
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Chapter 10
...(Beth walked down the aisle to a KISS song). With Toph staying in LA with Bill, Eggers will remain in Illinois for a few extra days to excavate his past. He...
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...stupid ashes?” she adds. Eggers can’t believe she would do this without consulting him or Bill, and this makes Beth so angry that she hangs up. “This is just too—I had...
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...ocean, thinking that maybe he should travel to Cape Cod, though this would require asking Bill to keep Toph longer, and then he’d have to tell the family what he’s doing.
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