Bily teaches English at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan. In the following essay she examines the character of Sally in Talley's Folly, celebrating her oddness and drawing on insights gained from Lanford Wilson's other Talley family plays.

Talley's Folly was first staged in 1979, a year after audiences had come to know one of its characters, Sally Talley Friedman, from her appearance in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July. In Fifth of July, Sally is the family matriarch, the oldest and wittiest member of the extended family that shares the Talley home. Though she is not the most important character in the play, she is easily the most likeable. Sally has just been widowed, losing her husband, Matt, with whom she shared three decades of happiness; and she recently attended the funeral of an old friend, Harley Campbell, with whom she went to high school. Through a series of...