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Vic’s Father (Bob Lang)
Carol Lang is the mother of Vic and Kerry and the wife of Bob. A strong-willed, no-nonsense woman, Carol had a difficult childhood—her mother struggled with alcoholism. While she once dreamt of becoming a kindergarten teacher, Carol is initially homemaker and later, in Perth, works as a cleaner for wealthy clients. Despite Bob’s drinking and the hostile atmosphere in Angelus, Carol remains firm, though she clearly fears for the safety of her husband and family. Once she and Vic move to Perth, Carol earns renown for her thoroughness as a cleaner, and she prizes her honor above all else, even at the cost of what Vic sees as demeaning difference to her selfish, uncaring clientele. Carol has a distant relationship with her daughter-in-law, Gail, though they eventually bond on Christmas while drinking champagne together—a rarity for Carol, who does not drink because of her mother and Bob’s alcoholism. Before Carol dies of cancer, she asks Vic to bring Bob to her deathbed, both to see him again and to ensure that her husband and son reunite.
Vic’s Mother (Carol Lang) Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Vic’s Mother (Carol Lang) or refer to Vic’s Mother (Carol Lang). 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:
).
On Her Knees
Quotes
My mother had a kind of stiff-necked working class pride. After the old man bolted she became a stickler for order. She believed in hygiene, insisted upon rigour. She was discreet and deadly honest, and those lofty standards, that very rigidity, set her apart. Carol Lang went through a house like a dose of salts. She earned a reputation in the riverside suburbs where, in time, she became the domestic benchmark. She probably cleaned the houses of some of my wealthy classmates without any of us being the wiser.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Commission
Quotes
Once upon a time it had been true. Honest Bob. He was straight as a die and what you saw was what you got. I believed in him. He was Godlike. His fall from grace was so slow as to be imperceptible, a long puzzling decline. Even during that time he was never rough or deliberately unkind. If he had been it would have been easier to shut off from him. He just disappeared by degrees before our eyes, subsiding into a secret disillusionment I never understood, hiding the drink from my mother who, when she discovered it, hid it from me in turn for fear I would lose respect for him. She turned herself inside out to protect him and then me. And at such cost. All for nothing. He ran away. Left us. I grew up in a hurry.
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Vic’s Mother (Carol Lang) Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Vic’s Mother (Carol Lang) or refer to Vic’s Mother (Carol Lang). 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:
).
On Her Knees
Quotes
My mother had a kind of stiff-necked working class pride. After the old man bolted she became a stickler for order. She believed in hygiene, insisted upon rigour. She was discreet and deadly honest, and those lofty standards, that very rigidity, set her apart. Carol Lang went through a house like a dose of salts. She earned a reputation in the riverside suburbs where, in time, she became the domestic benchmark. She probably cleaned the houses of some of my wealthy classmates without any of us being the wiser.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Commission
Quotes
Once upon a time it had been true. Honest Bob. He was straight as a die and what you saw was what you got. I believed in him. He was Godlike. His fall from grace was so slow as to be imperceptible, a long puzzling decline. Even during that time he was never rough or deliberately unkind. If he had been it would have been easier to shut off from him. He just disappeared by degrees before our eyes, subsiding into a secret disillusionment I never understood, hiding the drink from my mother who, when she discovered it, hid it from me in turn for fear I would lose respect for him. She turned herself inside out to protect him and then me. And at such cost. All for nothing. He ran away. Left us. I grew up in a hurry.
