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Pop
Will and Shawn’s mother, and Pop’s widow. She isn’t a particularly prevalent character in the novel—when Will talks about his mother, he focuses mainly on her grief over losing Shawn, which is all-consuming. He also talks about how his mother never had much say in what Pop, Shawn, and Will did, and instead must simply suffer the consequences of their choices. She suffers from eczema, an autoimmune skin condition that results in red, flaky skin, and (in her severe case) blisters. It’s itchy and painful, and Will suggests that his mom scratches in part as an outlet for her grief. Will’s mom and Pop met when they were young and had a dramatic and wildly romantic start to their relationship. However, Will’s mom was left on her own with three-year-old Will and seven-year-old Shawn when Pop was shot and killed. Will’s mother doesn’t seem to focus much on the particulars of the drama that Will suggests existed in Pop and Shawn’s life; she claims she can’t even remember the name of the man who shot Will’s and Shawn’s Uncle Mark. When it came to Shawn, Will’s mother knew she couldn’t control him. Following his 18th birthday, she stopped trying, and instead started praying that he’d live and wouldn’t get his girlfriend, Leticia, pregnant. She also formulated the idea of the “nighttime,” which she never fully explains to Will but which he interprets as the violence and danger that exists within men like Pop, Shawn, and Buck. Will and Shawn both seem to genuinely care for their mother—prior to his death, Shawn took dangerous trips into the Dark Suns gang’s territory to get her special soap. It pains Will to know that by going after Carlson Riggs (who he believes killed Shawn), he’ll break his mother’s heart. In Will’s understanding, however, it’s not okay to prioritize his mom’s pain or emotions over following their community’s “Rules” of revenge.
Will’s Mother Quotes in Long Way Down
The Long Way Down quotes below are all either spoken by Will’s Mother or refer to Will’s Mother. 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:
).
Prologue Quotes
BEEF
gets passed down like name-brand
T-shirts around here. Always too big.
Never ironed out.
gets inherited like a trunk of fool’s
gold or a treasure map leading
to nowhere.
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Four Quotes
BUT YOU DID WHAT YOU HAD TO DO,
I said,
after listening to
my father admit
what I had already
known,
The Rules
are the rules.
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Three Quotes
A DUMB THING TO SAY
would’ve been to
tell Buck how important
that soap was
that it stopped Mom from
scraping loose a river
of wounds.
But instead
I just said,
Riggs.
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Will’s Mother Character Timeline in Long Way Down
The timeline below shows where the character Will’s Mother appears in Long Way Down. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue
...either want to be his friend or want nothing to do with him. Only Will’s mother and brother, Shawn, call him William, and Shawn only did so when he was trying...
(full context)
...Leticia knows she’s kissing Shawn goodbye. As the sound of sirens approaches, Will and Shawn’s mother moans, “Not my baby.”
(full context)
...that reads “THANK YOU, HAVE A NICE DAY.” Inside is some special soap for their mother’s eczema. Sometimes, their mother scratches and picks at her flaky skin until she bleeds, cursing...
(full context)
...and covers his head with a pillow so he doesn’t have to listen to his mother sobbing in the kitchen. She only stops crying when she takes a sip from a...
(full context)
...Biggie, while Will wrote an anagram in pencil on his wall, just in case his mother makes him erase it. It reads: “scare=cares.” Will explains that an anagram means taking the...
(full context)
...drawer, and Will suspects Shawn messed it up on purpose to keep Will and their mother out. Will admits that Shawn wasn’t one to be home by curfew, or to call...
(full context)
Will’s mother used to say that she knew Shawn was young and needed to get out, but...
(full context)
...into their territory, which starts nine blocks from Will’s building—the corner store that carries their mother’s special soap is right inside their territory. Riggs understood that he needed to get in...
(full context)
...knows the gun’s cry will be louder than a baby’s, though. When Will hears his mother in the bathroom, he turns the light off and leaps into bed, hiding the gun...
(full context)
The sun beams through the kitchen window, illuminating Will’s mother, who is asleep at the table. Her arms are swollen like she’s been scratching all...
(full context)
Seven
...Will will wake up from a dream, with the gun under his pillow and his mother asleep at the kitchen table. Buck seems to notice Will’s panic and says softly that...
(full context)
Five
According to Will’s mother, Uncle Mark videotaped everything, from dance battles to gang fights, with a camera that Mark’s...
(full context)
...go down. In Uncle Mark’s “scene,” Will stands over Shawn’s bloody body. He takes his mother inside, and then finds Shawn’s gun. Will thinks about the Rules, and the next day,...
(full context)
...and made lots of money, but he became a target for a young hustler. Will’s mother can never remember that hustler’s name.
(full context)
Four
...and wet himself. Will still doesn’t remember, even though he wants to. According to Will’s mother, Pop died of a broken heart. As a kid, Will always thought that Pop’s heart...
(full context)
...a father is completely foreign Will. He wants to tell Pop everything about Shawn, his mother, and the Rules, but he holds back because Buck, Dani, and Uncle Mark have warm,...
(full context)
...he was so angry. Something had gotten into Pop, Will thinks—it must’ve been what his mother calls the “nighttime.”
(full context)
...gun. Back at home, Pop says he took a hot shower. He couldn’t kiss Will’s mother, or Will and Shawn. Pop sat in the bathtub and felt like the porcelain kept...
(full context)
Three
...the bad was still in his blood. Will wonders if badness is the “nighttime” his mother talks about. The nighttime will put a gun in one’s hand and sharpen one’s teeth.
(full context)
...since he had to go down to the store to buy special soap for his mother. Will thinks it’d be dumb to tell Buck about how important that soap is to...
(full context)
