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Mabel Beasley
Randy was Norma Jean and Leroy’s infant son. 15 years before the start of the story, he died of sudden infant death syndrome at just four months old. Leroy pinpoints the moment of Randy’s death as the moment when he and Norma Jean became estranged, as they failed to grieve their son together and they conspicuously avoid mentioning him throughout the story. Nonetheless, Randy’s presence is deeply felt; Leroy repeatedly wonders whether he should bring Randy up to Norma Jean so that they can at last discuss his death—or whether doing so would open up old wounds neither of them want to face.
Randy Quotes in Shiloh
The Shiloh quotes below are all either spoken by Randy or refer to Randy. 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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Shiloh
Quotes
Norma Jean is often startled to find Leroy at home, and he thinks she seems a little disappointed about it. Perhaps he reminds her too much of the early days of their marriage, before he went on the road. They had a child who died as an infant, years ago. They never speak about their memories of Randy, which have almost faded, but now that Leroy is home all the time, they sometimes feel awkward around each other, and Leroy wonders if one of them should mention the child. He has the feeling that they are waking up out of a dream together—that they must create a new marriage, start afresh.
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Leroy remembers Norma Jean standing catatonically beside him in the hospital and himself thinking: Who is this strange girl? He had forgotten who she was.
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Now scientists are saying that crib death is caused by a virus. Nobody knows anything, Leroy thinks. The answers are always changing.
General Grant, drunk and furious, shoved the Southerners back to Corinth, where Mabel and Jet Beasley were married years later, when Mabel was still thin and good-looking. The next day, Mabel and Jet visited the battleground, and then Norma Jean was born, and then she married Leroy and they had a baby, which they lost, and now Leroy and Norma Jean are here at the same battleground. Leroy knows he is leaving out a lot. He is leaving out the insides of history. History was always just names and dates to him. It occurs to him that building a house out of logs is similarly empty—too simple. And the real inner workings of a marriage, like most of history, have escaped him.
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Get the entire Shiloh LitChart as a printable PDF.
Randy Character Timeline in Shiloh
The timeline below shows where the character Randy appears in Shiloh. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Shiloh
...of time on the road. Back then, Norma Jean and Leroy had a child named Randy, but he died in infancy. Leroy and Norma Jean never speak about their memories of...
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...Leroy himself is 34. He and Norma Jean were married at 18, and their son Randy was born a few months later. Randy died at just over four months old, but...
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The night Randy died, Leroy and Norma Jean were watching a drive-in double feature of Dr. Strangelove and...
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Leroy can barely remember Randy anymore—though he remembers in vivid detail a scene from the movie that he and Norma...
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...who has never forgiven him for disgracing her by getting Norma Jean pregnant. Soon after Randy’s death, Mabel said that “fate was mocking her.”
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...how, when he was trucking, he used to tell hitchhikers his whole life story, including Randy’s death. He would always end by saying, “Well, what do you think?” After a while,...
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