Many stereotypes are associated with the Appalachian background, which Townsend and Pollock use to their advantage to have their characters' interactions have this strong impact on their ongoing development. Every child wants to make his parents proud by becoming successful, by pursuing his parents' dream that he was never able to achieve, or by committing an act, right or wrong, that his parents ask him to do. In Saint Monkey, Audrey and Caroline are greatly influenced by their fathers' decisions and the consequences that followed, which also relates to Bobby and his father in "Real Life". An interview editor for The Rumpus, Ben Pfeiffer, concludes from an interview with Townsend one of the main reasons for the suffering of their friendship: "Audrey Martin and Caroline "Pookie" Wallace, misfit childhood friends, begin to drift apart along paths of different lives" (PfeifferTheRumpus.net). Townsend writes, “…we must all follow the dreams of our fathers” (Townsend 192). Audrey writes this to Caroline; walking away and chasing her father's dream, while Caroline is forced to stay in Mt. Sterling to take her sister due to her father killing her mother; consequence. In “Real Life,” Pollock creates a similar scenario with Bobby in relation to his father. Bobby is influenced to commit an act of violence by his father's command: "Back off, I'll blister you" (Pollock 95). Bobby's only two options are: hit the boy or get hit. No child wants to be abused, so the logical thing to choose is to take revenge: consequence. The development of all three characters is the result of their actions: Audrey grows up