That’s interesting, because I think the morality in American Rust is a different one than I hold. I think a number of characters are trying to be good. I think one is succeeding at it, and that’s Billy. I think he’s the most moral character in the piece, because he. I mean, in part, comes from his having, I think, a very low sense of self-esteem or hope, or sense of hope, for what there is in his future. He is in essence sacrificing himself for his best friend, who I think he sees as having much more potential than him and as having wasted that potential if he were to go in jail. So i think he’s the most moral character. Other characters are trying to do the right thing. Grace is trying to save her son, who is in fact innocent of the crime, but going about it in a way that really skirts the line of exploitation. And Del is trying to do the right thing for the woman that he loves by saving her boy, but has ended up getting himself into quite a mess. And and I think that’s very good writing, when a problem is presented to a character, and their attempt to solve that problem makes things worse, and every attempt at solving the successively worse problems that develop become even more problematic. So that’s the place that Del’s in. The place itself though. Buell is is a place where hope and morality go to die. You can’t be static as a human being and expect to live a happy moral life. Life doesn’t come to you, you go to life, so it’s almost as if anybody who stays there and suffers under the lack and the blight is not really moral because they’re not pursuing life. They’re just maintaining the status quo.

Mark talks about how his central purpose has changed.