The Simple Gift Themes

When teenager Billy Luckett leaves his abusive, alcoholic Dad, he has only $50, a few changes of clothes, and a handful of apples to his name. Being poor and unhoused aren’t easy: without money, Billy gets out of town by jumping on a freight train on which he nearly freezes and he survives on stolen table scraps from McDonald’s. But Old Bill and even the town of Bendarat—now only a ghost of its former…

In The Simple Gift, runaway teenager Billy meets Old Bill at the “Bendarat Hilton,” the abandoned freight train cars where each secretly lives. Billy gained freedom by leaving his abusive, alcoholic Dad in search of life on his own terms. In contrast, Old Bill fell into the life of an unemployed, unhoused alcoholic after the accidental death of his daughter, Jessie, who fell out of a tree, and his wife, who died in…

Billy Luckett’s life has taught him to be self-reliant and suspicious. He distrusts living by the rules, because they didn’t protect him from his alcoholic Dad. Caitlin lives unhappily by her parents’ stifling rules. Old Bill followed the rules when his daughter Jessie was alive, but working overtime kept him from his family, a loss he feels with acuity after his wife and daughter both tragically die. Subsequently, all three exempt themselves from…