Roger Best is the father of Pat Best and the grandfather of Billie Delia Cato. Though he is a founding father of Ruby, he has no status in town because he married Delia, a light-skinned outsider, which rendered the entire Best family outsiders in their own town. Roger is Ruby’s mortician and ambulance-driver, but he has little trade because no one ever dies in Ruby.
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Roger Best Character Timeline in Paradise
The timeline below shows where the character Roger Best appears in Paradise. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Grace
...goose chase, and she is planning to hitchhike out of town when a man named Roger Best offers to give her a ride to the train station.
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On the way to the station, Roger Best stops at the Convent to pick up the body of Mother, who has recently...
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Seneca
...to acknowledge the problem openly. Arnette is home from college and won’t leave her bed, Roger Best’s granddaughter Billie Delia has disappeared, a young man named Menus Jury has become an...
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Patricia
...the school’s Christmas play, which all of Ruby annually comes together to support. Her father, Roger Best, told her over dinner that he plans to add a gas station to his...
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...Ruby isolated, even as fights for civil rights gained traction throughout the nation. Pat’s father Roger is the only one of the New Fathers to ever break the unspoken “blood rule.”...
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...life despite the town’s disdain for the Bests. None of the women could drive, and Roger was out of town, so they had to beg the men to take Delia for...
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...town limits, which lets the town believe they are blessed, and which also severely hurts Roger Best’s mortuary business. Pat reflects on the fractions of Delia’s life story she knows, and...
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...She doesn’t know which family of the remaining eight was cut, and when she asks Roger, he refuses to believe that any ill will exists in the play or Ruby at...
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Lone
...and “did an abortion on her” against her will. They accuse Gigi of flirting with Roger Best when he drove her to the Convent, and they blame the women for Billie...
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...for Connie’s murder and Dovey disagrees. Finally, the townspeople of Ruby leave the Convent. When Roger Best, who was out of town, drives up to the Convent to collect the bodies,...
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