THIS POST IS PART II OF A LITERARY REVIEW OF DEMON COPPERHEAD (CHAPTER FORTY-TWO TO END OF NOVEL).
SEE SEPARATE PREVIOUS POST FOR PART I REVIEW (CHAPTERS ONE TO FORTY-ONE OF DEMON COPPERHEAD).
Original Part I post here at link below, covering beginning of the novel through chapter forty-one:
[The purpose of these paired blog posts is to help you prepare for your book club discussion or high school or university English class discussion of Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver, which I believe is one of the best ten American novels ever written. I would categorize this novel as superior to anything written by Mark Twain for example.]
FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO PLOT SUMMARY
We begin Demon Copperhead Novel Review Continued with chapter forty-two. Demon believes this medication he is taking (the Lortab and Oxy) is legitimate, and is not a "drug." He follows doctor's orders. That's important to him as an adult narrator, to remember that he was following orders. He and Coach decide he will play in a football game, in about four weeks, despite the knee injury. The idea is to focus on key moments in the game, to be put in for select plays. In his first game back, he doesn't play much because the other team is so horrible, Demon isn't required to play. The next week, the opponent is tougher, so Demon will be expected to play.
Demon takes extra medication to be ready to play. He's a bit mentally impaired by his medication, but he still plays, and Coach sets up the plays to focus on other players. Demon feels a responsibility to keep playing, so he does. He hurts the injured knee worse, but keeps going. He gets constipation, chills, runs, diarrhea. At times he has spontaneous diarrhea. These appear to be signs of opioid withdrawal. He's worried about crapping his pants during the homecoming dance, associated with the game the following week. He keeps taking pills to manage the pain. He keeps taking pills to manage the side effects of withdrawal from the pills. [The author is indicating that Demon is now an addict.]
Homecoming is a big deal. Photos. Girls all dressed up. Girls leaving treats in his lockers. It feels like a lot of pressure. Demon likes the attention but it also feels a bit insincere. One day a friend Terp is waiting by Demon's locker, excited. Demon finally opens the locker, a girl's thong is hanging in his locker from a wire. Terp is laughing and dancing and freaking out. Terp asks Demon if the panties have been worn or not. Then Terp pushes the crotch of the panties into Demon's nose. Sure enough, the panties have been worn. The panties belong to Vicky Strout, aka "Scratch and Sniff."
But Demon isn't interested in Vicky Strout. His only desire is to take Dory to homecoming. On the other hand, he's afraid she'll say no. Instead, Dory comes to Demon at his home on Monday, while Demon is in bed. Demon is impaired by his meds. Dory comes around by the nightstand and looks at his pills. [She seems to know what she's looking at.] She's wearing sandals with silver rings on her toes. He's smitten with her looks. She has something in her purse for him. He says he will guess what she has in her purse, and if he guesses right, he gets to ask her on a date.
She removes a pink box from her purse. In the box is a baby chick. She remembered this from meeting Demon at the feed store. She says she bought a whole crate of chicks but her dog ate the rest of them. Demon considers the chick to be a survivor. Demon buys Dory real flowers for homecoming, and gets himself a new jacket to wear. Angus jokingly calls the chick the love child of Demon and Dory. Dory encourages Demon to sell some of his pills for money for the jacket.
Dory's father is doing worse. Arrangements are made for Dory to attend the dance with Demon. He has to get to the football game early. He's worried about shitting his pants (which occurs during drug withdrawal), so he takes plenty of his meds. Dory looks perfect in her blue dress and purple hair. Demon gives her her flowers. She's delighted. During halftime there's a "homecoming court." Demon and Dory are king and queen of the dance. Dory suggests to Demon at halftime that she wants to give him a present later, that she's been saving something for him. He imagines this is sex. The second half goes poorly, Demon's team loses, and Demon doesn't play well.
After the game, Demon begins drinking to get comfortable for the dance, which is held at the school near or outside of the gym. Dory is a great dancer, Demon can see how she was popular before she dropped out of high school to care for her father. Demon doesn't dance much because his knee hurts. After the dance, they take Dory's father's Impala to go back to Dory's house. Dory knows a spot they can park, but first they need to check on the neighbor who is watching Dory's father. The house is out in the deep country area.
When they get to the house, Dory's dog Gyp comes running. Gyp is kind of ugly with bad teeth. Demon never meets Dory's father on this occasion.
Demon has a hard time remembering what happened next. He's on pills and booze in the Impala. They park the car somewhere. Demon is nervous. Dory says it's her first time, too. Dory says she has a present; she says it's from her dad. Her eyes are twinkling. She opens a flat foil package. It's not a condom. She says it's "shine." A painkiller patch, Fentanyl. She took it from her dad while he was sleeping. Now she removes a kit from her purse, a spoon, a lighter, cotton ball, syringe.
Demon realizes that the "first" Dory was saving for him wasn't losing her virginity but doing this injection together, because according to Dory, the first time you do Fentanyl is the best feeling of your life. She puts some gel in his mouth (which she scraped from the patch with the spoon), and shoots herself up in the foot (presumably after melting the gel with a lighter). They get high. At some point she removes her dress completely. Seeing her whole body at once is overwhelming to Demon. They have sex in the car. He doesn't remember all the details, just that Dory became his girl, and the feeling that nothing could hurt him now.
Notes: The story grows heavy here with omens. Writers in the 19th century like Balzac, who were part of the "realism" movement, believed that you could predict a person's interior by their exterior. Kingsolver seems interested in this type of writing as well. Dory's dog Gyp is presented as a dog that is sort of cute but sort of ugly, or perhaps a dog that used to be cute, but is no longer cute, or a dog that seems harmless but actually annoying or harmful in some ways. We all know the feeling -- a friend or family member has a little annoying chihuahua or similar, a dog part cute, part terrifyingly ugly or useless. It seems cute until it bites you.
At around the same point in the story, Dory buys Demon a chick from the farm supply store. The chick is cute, but it's family has all suffered from tragedy, and ultimately the reason the other chicks were eaten is because Dory and her father didn't keep track of the dog. Moreover, neither Dory nor Demon really wants to take care of the chick, so the chick is a cute, fragile thing is hard to take care of, that no one wants. We see also that Dory is taking care of her sick father.
These are bad omens about what will happen with Demon and Dory. Maybe Dory is the chick that Demon will fail to care for. Maybe Demon is the chick that Dory will fail to care for. Maybe Dory is like Gyp -- sort of cute but sort of ugly and out of control. If Angus is right and the chick is the "love child" of Demon and Dory, then chances are a child of this couple will not do well in this world.
At some point the reader has to ask herself if she believes the story of responsibility that Kingsolver is weaving around Demon's growing drug addiction. We are told earlier in the story that Aunt June believes her boyfriend Kent is a drug dealer. This is so obvious to June that she breaks up with Kent. The author suggests that the pharmaceutical reps have personal knowledge that the opioids are dangerous, but they push them anyway like drug dealers, in exchange for money and vacation packages. We are also told in the previous chapters after Demon's original injury that the doctors are negligent in getting x-rays/imaging and fixing the knee, and they keep Demon afloat with drugs. The author goes so far as to suggest that one doctor tells Demon he can double up his Lortab prescription, and then Demon on his own doubles the double amount (quadrupling the amount). The second doctor gives Demon a fairly large supply of Oxy without coordinating whether that is actually needed or not (with Demon already having Lortab). We are also informed that the pharmacies themselves are to blame -- the pharmacies full of people waiting in line for drugs, including a scary-looking blindman with nothing in his eye sockets.
The author also focuses on Coach Winfield as a source of blame, pushing Demon to return to play, and being naive or neglectful about the impact of playing on the injured knee. At the same time, Kingsolver portrays Aunt June as heroic for warning Demon and Coach of the dangers of the opioids, and also for being more realistic with Demon and Coach (for free) about his bad prospects. Moreover, June gives Demon and Coach good medical advice in a timely manner, without any requirement for an appointment or payment. Meanwhile we are told it's hard to get into the real doctors and takes a long time to get x-rays. Kingsolver also maintains through Demon's narration that Demon himself is taking the drugs as prescribed (except not really, because has doubled his pills) and Demon is following the directions of older people like Coach and the doctors.
On the other hand, Kingsolver does paint Demon as someone who will do anything for fame, or to be no longer a loser, so she puts some blame on him for wanting to play so bad. And then the scene with Dory, where they do Fentanyl -- this scene involves no adults, it's simply Dory stealing a patch from her dad that she and Demon use to get high. In this scene Demon will do anything Dory commands, because he's smitten with her and wants sex. So Kingsolver doesn't exactly excuse Demon from responsibility for his own actions. Demon is scared of the needle Dory uses, but he doesn't push back against what she is proposing. He and Dory have equal power, more or less, and they are not good for each other. There's no adult telling them what to do. At this point it's unclear if Dory is potentially older than Demon, which might shift some blame away from Demon. Also, Demon seems overly afraid of surgery. Many teens have surgery. It doesn't seem reasonable that Demon is so afraid of surgery. I'm not sure it is fair to blame big Pharma and the doctors for Demon's personal fear of surgery. If Demon had decided to focus on getting the knee better, he could have had surgery earlier and avoided the need presumably to stay on such high doses of medication. Of course, Winfield doesn't want the surgery either. So perhaps Demon is excused from personal responsibility for failing to get his knee treated, when it was so important to him personally to be on the football team, to fit in.
A concern here would be that Kingsolver is trying to make a list of bad guys and good guys in the opioid crisis, but of course it's hard to do that. What if Demon, like his mom, got addicted as an adult. Then do we blame the adult instead of the child, or do we still blame Pharma? We are told that people in Appalachia will do anything for money (will kill themselves coal mining for example) so why wouldn't we extend that sense of mercy or excuse to those in Appalachia who work at pharmacies and make their living selling opioids essentially? By now (in real life) every doctor, hospital, pharmacy, distributor, pharmacy benefit manager, manufacturer, retailer has been blamed for the opioid crisis. Presumably a lot of these "bad guys" or "responsible parties" were also just trying to do their best. Perhaps it is overly simplistic to blame the opioid crisis on any particular person or entity. Maybe the author agrees and that what is needed is empathy and support rather than blame.
Dory is herself depicted as a sort of drug. Demon thinks she's so beautiful, he sort of doesn't really understand the complexity and burden of her life. She is overly glamourized or simplified, in his mind, sort of like a beautiful oblong pill. Once they have sex, he thinks "nothing can hurt him" because Dory is his girl. Because he didn't have strong parental support and nurturing, Demon is potentially too empty inside or is looking too much for an easy fix. Both the Oxy and Dory represent an easy fix.
In any event it's up to the reader to evaluate Demon's narration and the author's arguments (through that narration) and for the reader to decide who is responsible for Demon's growing drug addiction. Maybe no one is responsible, maybe everyone is -- there doesn't have to be an answer, but it's a big question presented by the novel.
FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE PLOT SUMMARY
Demon had one perfect week, the week measured from when he had sex with Dory to his next date with Dory, scheduled for the following Saturday. They plan to see a movie at the drive-in movie theater. The plan is to avoid the crowd and just see the movie the two of them, and then to park after.
But on Saturday afternoon, Maggot calls and says something is wrong with Mr. Peggot. June will swing by and pick up Demon. Demon calls Dory to say he will just meet her at the movie theater a bit later. June picks up Demon, asks Demon a bunch of questions about his knee and the painkillers. Demon has no intention of having a knee operation.
Maggot is in the backseat of June's car. When Demon asks where Emmy is, June says Emmy is in trouble for not following rules. The Peggot house is surrounded with lots of cars. Hammer is there; he gives Demon a hug. Hammer doesn't look well. People in the yard are speaking quietly, with somber faces.
Demon is invited by Maggot's Aunt Ruby to go upstairs to see Mr. Peg. Demon finds Maggot, who is throwing rocks into a little pond or stream. They remember pretending to be Avengers back when they were kids. Suddenly, Maggot is crying. Later that night, Mr. Peg passes away. Mrs. Peggot and another woman wash the body and clip the hair in the morning, before calling the funeral home to pick up the body. Maggot and Demon never go upstairs, and stay out by the creek at night under the moon. Maggot reveals that he's been saying at June's house after he and Mr. Peg got into a dispute. So Maggot's last words to Mr. Peg were negative words.
A couple of days later, Dory picks Demon up in the Impala. They go to the funeral for Mr. Peg. Dory tells Demon her mom died in a car wreck, that her mom entered traffic while two cars were drag racing. Demon remembers his own mother's death and funeral. Mr. Peg's funeral is packed with a lot of people. Stoner is there with a pregnant underage waitress. At the cemetery, located in a small church yard, Demon sees Hammer Kelly on the edge of the cemetery near a woods. Hammer looks unwell; Demon assumes this is due to Mr. Peg's death. They all go inside where they see June and Maggot. At this point Emmy is still AWOL. Demon is happy to see so much support for Mr. Peg at the funeral.
The minister speaks of Mr. Peg. It's a celebration of life and not, like at the service for Demon's mom, a pure tragedy. The idea of the sermon is that people are connected in myriad ways, seen and unseen. Even though Mr. Peggot was gone, he was still present, in a sense, through the connections and memories. Demon remembers with chagrin how at his mom's funeral, when the casket was closed, it was like everything was over, no memory, no history, no nothing, and that Demon had the personal burden of knowing his mom and spreading her memory, no one to share the burden with.
Dory holds Demon's hand. Her hand is like a tiny bird hand. Demon has the idea that he can hold on to her hand forever, to commit to her. The funeral home is doing another funeral, for a kid Collins, who was also on the football team; only eighteen years old. People prepare the food for the post-burial luncheon. Demon seeks out Mrs. Peggot. She looks lost, like she doesn't know what to do. Demon sits down with Mrs. Peg and holds her hand. Dory is swept off by some Peggot cousins. Dory and Demon stay for lunch.
Halfway through lunch, Emmy shows up. Everyone is silent. Emmy turns around and leaves. Demon and Dory finish their meal. Demon and Maggot go outside and smoke weed by some dumpsters. Maggot jokes that the dumpsters are for leftover bodies. Suddenly, they hear two girls fighting. It is Rose and Emmy fighting. Emmy is screaming. Rose is pulling Emmy's hair. Demon goes around and restrains Rose. Finally the fight breaks up. Rose drives away in a pick-up truck, and Emmy runs off. Other people from the funeral home come out. Demon notices the surviving spouse and child of the high school football player who died.
Maggot asks Demon if Demon spoke to Hammer. Demon says he told Hammer he was sorry about Mr. Peg's death. Maggot clarifies that Hammer is sad not only because of Mr. Peg's death but because Emmy broke up with Hammer. Maggot suggests it was Demon's fault, for introducing Emmy to Fast. Emmy and Fast had apparently been seen together romantically or sexually, leading to the breakup.
Notes: These recent chapters are probably the emotional center of the entire book. Demon injures his knee. He starts dating Dory. He becomes addicted to painkiller. The reader sees immediately how tragic things will end up between Demon and Dory. Dory is a wounded cute animal, her father sickly -- everything touching her will be tragic. Meanwhile Maggot is destroyed by Mr. Peg's death and we see that Fast Forward is ruining Emmy's and June's lives, a betrayal of sorts by Demon, who introduced Fast to Emmy.
The author depicts beautifully how at Mr. Peg's funeral, the burden of his loss is felt and shared by a large community of people he touched during life. Because so many mourners are present, they share the burden together, and his funeral becomes a celebration. Whereas for his own mother's funeral, which resulted from her overdose death, there were few mourners, and Demon was left to bear the tragedy alone. Similarly, the death of Collins seems to impact primarily his surviving spouse and child, and those two survivors are depicted as bearing an unfair burden related to the loss of their husband and father. Kingsolver seems to be making the point that the opioid deaths are so tragic not only because the deaths are premature and unnecessary, but because of the dramatic burden they leave on the survivors, who often share the burden as a single person without sharing the load. Beautiful, painful reading.
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FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR PLOT SUMMARY
"All the way up, or all the way down." Coach has encouraged Demon to wean off the meds, so he can heal up and get ready to play football in the fall. But after a few hours without the meds, Demon would get the sweats or chills or shit his pants. Then he'd start on the medicine again and repeat the cycle. Only Dory knows the ups and downs he's going through. She's his salvation, like a secret salvation.
Demon feels a responsibility to his community to recover so he can play football and help his community feel better with more football wins. He feels he's trying as hard as he can to go off the meds, for his community.
Demon and Dory take care of Dory's father, Vester. The house is gross and smells of dirty diapers. Vester's hospital bed is in the front room. Gyp is there. Home care nurses come in several times a week to help with the most difficult nursing tasks. Dory is mostly on her own to take care of her father. Most of Dory's friends dropped her as friends once she focused on taking care of her dad. For Dory, the most exciting part of her life was trips to the grocery store, a sense of freedom driving the car wherever.
Dory's dad is only 51, but looks like a grandfather character. Dory's dad had worked in the mines, exposed to asbestos and coal dust. He got bad lungs and then got a settlement from the asbestos litigation, and with that money he'd bought the farm supply store. The roof of the house has a plastic horse up there. The upstairs of the house is a "dead mom museum." Dory's room is weird with a lot of kid stuff mixed with dirty teen stuff (like Emmy's room?). Demon and Dory make out a lot on Dory's bed, but Gyp makes it hard for them to have sex, because he's always around barking.
Demon recounts sometimes going off to Creaky's farm alone, to spend time by himself in the old tobacco stripping house with the pleasant smell of tobacco and the cool earth beneath. The farm has been closed for two years and sold to a city slicker and is unused, so it's easy for Demon to sneak over there and be alone. Demon takes Dory there with some alcohol and candles. They put out a picnic blanket and have sex there in the tobacco stripping house. Demon craves the physical connection with Dory, and describes it almost like an addiction. After they have sex, they sit there relaxed and have deep conversation. His descriptions of Dory seem similar to how he describes getting high.
Dory asks Demon what type of creature the chick will be when it grows up, and Demon guesses it's a rooster. Angus is still calling chick, "Love Child." The chick mostly lives alone in the tool shed, with Mattie Kate the only one that feeds it once in a while. Dory's so little she folds herself up in Demon's shirt and just her head and toes are exposed. Demon lights the candles and pours the Thunderbird into paper cups. It feels like a sacrament, to Demon.
Demon recounts how one time he vomited on Dory during a withdrawal from painkiller. As a result, he has tried harder to always have a little something in his system to avoid puking on her. He doesn't want to, after all, become another person like her father that she has to care for. Xanax, Klonopin, morphine patches, these all help him get by. He describes how a person sucks off the coating on the Oxycodone pills to override the slow release feature. This often leaves a green residue on the person's shirt. With the coating off, the pill can be crushed and snorted or then melted and injected.
Dory is upbeat and cheerful despite being a drug addict. Her eyes aren't really black, but blue. This is a symbol of how bright and shiny she is, that the blue seeps through the black.
Angus is pestering Demon to go steal another tree for upcoming Christmas. Coach thinks Demon is off the meds. Demon is making a show of lifting weights to show improvement in his physique. Demon stops by Coach's house sometimes for a big meal or a night in bed. Angus is growing annoyed with him for not being more consistent. Dory brings presents from the feed supply store for Coach and Angus, but Angus remains annoyed with Demon.
Demon has the idea he wants to again find Angus a nice Christmas gift, as he did the prior year. Dory is too easy to please, he thinks. He thinks maybe he should get make-up or nail polish or a CD for Dory. He borrows Dory's car to do some grocery shopping for Dory and her dad, thinking he will use this as an opportunity to find her a Christmas gift as well. So Demon's at the grocery store with bags of groceries, mostly frozen food, waiting in line to pick something up at the pharmacy. The pharmacist technician is talking to a customer about the customer's husband's anal surgery. Demon notices that over-the-counter drugs like Sudafed are stored in the protected area behind the pharmacy technicians.
Someone taps Demon on the shoulder. It's Tommy Waddles. Tommy is buying a Dew and Doritos for lunch. Tommy is doing newspaper layout as work. Demon recognizes Tommy is a decent person and has turned out well despite a difficult upbringing. Tommy is still interested in Sophie, a girl he's in touch with via phone and mail. Tommy invites Demon over. Tommy says he lives in a garage attached to a house. The people who live in the house are the McCobb family, the same foster family that Demon used to be with. Mr. McCobb is currently selling a weight loss supplement. Tommy seems to think that Mr. McCobb will soon get rich. Tommy enjoys the consistency of the McCobb family. Demon warns Tommy not to invest his personal money into McCobb's business idea, but it's too late, Tommy has already done so. Oh, Tommy!
FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE PLOT SUMMARY
The remainder of that winter is hazy in Demon's mind, the winter of tenth grade. He spends more and more time at Dory's house. He keeps his clothes and meds at Dory's house. He's still having night sweats. He's trying to reduce his opioid intake but is not successful. Dory is still taking care of her father, with nurse visits at the house three times per week in the morning. She sleeps a lot and helps Demon shoot up still.
Christmas comes and goes. Dory likes the gifts she receives from Demon. Demon misses spending time with Angus. Demon spends less and less time with his football teammates, on account of his injury. He's also not spending much time at the Peggot house. So Dory is nearly his entire world. Demon spends more and more time drawing his comics and doodles.
He's not taking school seriously, but he is still learning art from Ms. Annie. He's not doing as well in art this year as last. It's no longer magic and new to him. She believes he has talent but is potentially disappointed in him for not using that talent. Driver's ed is really the only important class to him, because it has a practical outcome.
He does like English, however, and will occasionally finish a book without even trying. He likes "Catcher in the Rye"; he gets it. He draws "Catcher in the Tobacco" comic. He likes Dickens and how Dickens depicts orphans.
Angus dares Demon to take actual steps towards going to the ocean, instead of just dreaming about it. Demon brings it up with Dory and of course she is interested in going. She wants to go but can't figure out how to leave her dad for that long. She supports Demon in going and wants him to take lots of photographs. But Demon needs someone to drive him to the ocean. Fast is busy. Maggot is constantly in trouble with Aunt June, but then Emmy says she's interested in going to the ocean, so then all of the sudden Fast Forward is interested in going, too. They go in Fast's truck.
The idea is to go to Virginia Beach, Virginia, even though none of them knows anything about it, and no one has any money or supplies to get there. Fast claims to have a friend on the way who can hook the group up with some easy cash. At the same time, at school, a lot of other kids are talking about going to the beach for Spring Break. Demon realizes he was probably an asshole for telling Dory about the trip, knowing she wouldn't be able to go, when she hardly has the opportunity to get far from home anymore.
Demon talks about how the appetites of teenagers are so large, that they want the whole world. He wants to be like the rich kids at school and those rich kids watch TV and want to be like the Kardashians. He bemoans the fact that kids like him aren't represented on TV -- kids who want so much of the world but can't have it due to their circumstances. His point seems to be not only political (that Appalachians don't have political representation in the media) but that TV essentially trains kids to want things they can't have, and maybe life would be easier for kids if the media didn't train them to want, want, want. This is an interesting point because we don't know if Demon is complaining that his life sucks, or if he's just complaining that it sucks relative to his expectations. Or if his older narrator self realizes that his younger self wasn't mature enough to know the difference.
They stop at a park called Hungry Mother, in February. The park and water and picnic area are all empty. They run for the beach. The beach is dirty and tiny. Emmy makes balls of sand and throws them. Demon points out that this is not a "real" beach, but Maggot and Emmy don't seem to care. Fast stands at a distance, looking over them. Demon considers that he doesn't trust Fast, but that he will take whatever power he can from whatever source (Demon will take power) he can.
Fast comes over and starts dancing with Emmy. They look good dancing, as if they have done it many times before. Fast sets her on a fencepost that she stands on with great balance against the moonlit sky. Fast and Emmy go into town to pick up food. Demon and Maggot sit on a log on a shore and the silver moonlight shines down. Demon observes that Maggot looks more like a man now instead of boy. Demon wonders if Maggot is in love with Fast. Maggot and Demon yell across the lake. No echo. Fast and Emmy return with a cold pizza. They look like they've been making out. Emmy and Maggot both have home-made quilts from Mrs. Peggot. The temperature is dropping. They enter a little cabin. Everyone falls asleep quickly while Demon thinks about Dory. He does some Oxy to respond to a case of the chills. He takes his blanket out to the porch and sits in a rocker. Emmy eventually joins him. "The moon went to bed already," he says. Emmy reveals that Aunt June has recently had her life threatened by a patient with a drug addiction. The number of pain patients is astonishingly high. Emmy talks generally about the problem of addiction, including that in Lee County the insurance won't pay for anything but pills.
Emmy brings up Hammer, suggests that possibly he is staying with Aunt June now to protect her from threatening patients. Demon inquires what went wrong between Emmy and Hammer. Emmy starts bawling, says she is a terrible person. Emmy refers to a friend Hot Topic as becoming recently pregnant and wanting an abortion. Emmy feels horrible because he helped Hot Topic get to Knoxville for an abortion, but then lied to her mom about it. Emmy says she had to break up with Hammer because he was too good for her, and that Aunt June dislikes Fast. They talk about Maggot doing meth and probably trading sex for drugs.
Demon waxes poetic and thinks of himself and Emmy and Maggot and Mariah Peggot and Humvee and Fast -- all bad kids -- and how Emmy came from Humvee and Maggot came from Mariah -- and how all of them had benefitted from charity and support from various sources but that they were ultimately four demons (Fast, Demon, Maggot, Emmy) from four hungry mothers with starving hearts.
Notes: Wow. What a chapter. Fucking brilliant. The stories get more painful, complex, and interwoven. Fast, Demon, and Maggot have serious drug addictions, with Maggot on meth and Demon and Fast on pills, weed, and booze, plus Demon shooting up heroin or Fent or similar with Dory. Emmy has a great adoptive mom (Aunt June) that she lies to and betrays essentially by dating Fast instead of Hammer. Of the four "demons" that Demon lists, Emmy has the best mom, and Emmy still has conflict and guilt. Beautiful, poetic writing. At a place called Hungry Mother, Demon concludes he and his friends all come from Hungry Mothers, that a mother who has had trauma or addiction may not have enough to give to a child. They all wanted the ocean, instead they find a shitty cold gross lake with a dirty mud beach and sleep in a cabin that smells like mouse piss. The moonlight makes Demon reflective but it also casts Demon himself in a new light for the reader and we see him differently, we perceive him as more mature and reflective, able to start piece by piece potentially acknowledging the source of his pain and trauma and addiction. And of course knowledge isn't enough, it's a first step, as Demon is still plum in the middle of his addiction, dead stuck in the mud. Just as he examines his life and wonders how the hell he's going to get himself better, we see him and we wonder the same thing.
FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX PLOT SUMMARY
The truck cab is crowded with all four up front. Beer breath. Long drive. Fast takes an exit; Demon notices signs for several colleges. Demon thinks of Angus going to college--he wonders who "her people" will be there. Demon notices a BMW and Mercedes at the gas station. The Mercedes has a "tiny green boat" attached to it -- presumably a kayak. The driver wears rubber shoes with individual toes, and shorts over tights. Demon is not impressed with the style. Maggot and Demon arrange a place in the back of the truck were Maggot will ride. Maggot is high again. The guy in the rubber shoes jokes that Demon and friends look like an episode of Jackass.
Fast wants to go to Richmond, lots more driving. Fast makes a call on his cell, apparently trying to locate Mouse. Tall buildings, row houses everywhere. Tons of Black people. They are in a ghetto area. Kids playing basketball. They meet Mouse in a small house. She's there with two men. Mouse is upset at Fast for bringing minors along. Mouse spreads powder on a coffee table.
Maggot snorts some powder. Demon snorts some coke. Demon realizes it's the first time he's seen Fast do anything except for beer and weed. Hard night of sleep. The house is full of loud music, people coming and going, lights, cars. The coke makes Demon paranoid. He takes Xanax to calm down. Demon is worried that Fast is losing interest in going to the beach. Fast is under his Ford, taping something to the bottom. Indeed, Fast says they have to leave in the morning, with the beach only one hour away. Demon sleeps in the truck, despite the danger of sleeping outside.
The group drives home. Everyone is acting tired and looney. Demon is upset at himself for getting his hopes so high about going to the beach. Demon has to stop at bathrooms on the way back because of his opioid withdrawals.
They arrive at home. Dory comes to the porch. "There she stood under the porch light with her ice cream face and shiny hair, a big sweater buttoned up over her perfect body." They kiss. Gyp gets his teeth caught in Demon's jeans and Demon sort of clobbers him across the room. Dory asks for pictures and Demon realizes not only that he didn't take any but that he misplaced Angus' camera. Dory helps him get high and he takes a nap in her bed. He and Dory start to fool around, but then Angus calls and says he needs to return emergently. Apparently the school has called and is worried Demon has missed so much school.
Demon returns to Coach's house. U-Haul antagonizes Demon and says Coach has assigned U-Haul to keep track of Demon, interfere with his drug use, and try to get him ready for football again. U-Haul suggests that he knows Coach is embezzling. Then he says he's in charge of the "merchandise" at Coach's house.
Notes: Once again, Demon's dream of going to the real ocean is frustrated. The author makes fun of city folk. Fast is somewhat of a drug dealer while Demon and Maggot are mostly just users. The author shows the reader how coke gets from the cities to the countryside. Demon has two girls watching out for him, Dory who gets him high and sleeps with him, and Angus who pushes him to not screw everything up with Coach and school.
FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN PLOT SUMMARY
Vester (Dory's dad) dies. There is bad weather, a power outage, and Vester's oxygen machine or other medical equipment stops working. Dory cries a lot. She worries her father's death is her responsibility. The funeral reminds Demon of his own mom's funeral. An aunt comes in from Newport News, Virginia to take charge of the funeral, disregarding Dory's input. Dory spends a lot of time visiting the grave in the weeks after the funeral. Vester's business is sold.
Dory doesn't know what to do without her father alive, without a task to perform. She uses drugs to cope with her father's loss. At the same time, access to Vester's medication is stopped and it hurts Dory's and Demon's access to the good stuff.
The first date they went on after Vester's death was a visit to a pain clinic. 7 p.m. on a Sunday evening, the parking lot of the pain clinic is full of cars, and busy. The parking lot is dreary and grey and rainy. Demon thinks they are there to see the pain doctors but Dory clarifies they are there to sell the drugs she has gathered up from Vester.
The drug dealing aspect is not glamorous. A lot of the sellers are old and injured. Demon considers that the hillbillies are resourceful in a sense by selling their drugs for money. Demon sells some Oxy for cash. They go to a grocery store for food. Dory says that if you wait long enough at the pain clinic, the doctor will give you pain meds, and then in turn many patients will resell them.
In the evenings, Demon returns to Coach's house to make a good showing that he's trying at school. But after Vester's death, Demon has a hard time leaving Dory at night. He talks about how immature Dory is, little plush toys everywhere. He learns Gyp's origin story is that Dory one time saw Gyp in an old woman's purse at a fair and started crying for the dog and the purse. Eventually Vester paid the woman $200 for the dog and the purse. Demon begins to understand that no one ever said No to Dory which is part of the explanation for how she turned into a helpless drug addict. Demon tries to explain to Dory that he needs to stay in good graces with Coach but Dory thinks this all means Demon doesn't love her. Demon still comments on how beautiful and fragile Dory's face and body are.
Betsy Woodall comes for a visit. By now it's been several months since Vester's death, and the weather rainy constantly. She cuts off the payments to Coach for taking care of Demon, as Demon is failing in school. Betsy basically withdraws her support for Demon and leaves Demon and Coach to decide on their own future together.
Dory characterizes Betsy's treatment of Demon as a lack of love and invites Demon to live with her. Dory has no practical knowledge of making food, using an oven, etc. Dory is eighteen but is immature. There is no "test" for being an adult, for turning eighteen. Dory is technically an adult who owned her own house (inherited from her dad) but there's no test for adulthood. Dory and Demon celebrate Demon being removed from Betsy's support by using a leftover Fentanyl patch from Vester.
But before Demon moves to live with Dory, he has to pack up his things at Coach's house. Angus helps him. She's upset. She says Betsy was asking Demon to defend himself, to stand up for himself, and he too easily caved in. Angus points out that he could have used his serious knee injury, his need for surgery, as an excuse. Then Angus reminds him that Dory's father's death is also potentially an excuse or a reason for mercy from Betsy Woodall. In any event, Angus is upset at Betsy for cutting off Demon.
Angus recommends Demon complete his high school education in the coming two years. Coach comes to the room and reminds Demon he can stay there if he wants. Demon is embarrassed about his poor physical condition, his addiction, and prefers to leave. Angus asks Demon now how bad his addiction is. He admits he uses the painkillers and that he can't go without them. Demon goes further with his confession and admits he's a full-blown addict, including with heroin, but that he drew the line at needles. Angus encourages him to speak to an adult for help. Of course Demon is upset by this (no doubt because adults helped him get into this problem in the first place).
They say goodbye and Demon reminds Angus he's only a few miles away, and will come by often, as his new home has little to offer and not even a stove that works. Demon states that he's the adult in his own life. Angus had given him before a little boat made inside a bottle. Demon wants to take it with him. Angus wraps it up in a shirt for him and puts it in a box. It's sort of a symbol of Demon's dream to go places in his life. Demon asks Angus if she likes Dory. She says she does. They recall the gift chicken from Dory that sure enough was eaten by a dog. Angus says she likes Dory, because Angus can see that Dory makes Demon happy. Angus has a selflessness he hasn't seen before.
Notes: Returning again to the theme that in Appalachia women's bodies are a commodity. Dory is good-looking, nice body, as Demon reminds us. But she has few practical skills. Still her body is enough to attract Demon to her life. More political criticism by the author of the doctors, retailers, manufacturers regarding the opioid epidemic. Clever instruction from the author that Dory is an "adult" and Demon is not an "adult," and what does that really mean.
FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT PLOT SUMMARY
Emmy ran off with Fast Forward. She had a scholarship to University of Tennesse, Knoxville, then decided not to go. Emmy is hiding out with a friend, Marsha. June is unhappy. June tries to track down Emmy at a friend's house. Maggot is crashing with Demon and Dory. Demon can see that Fast Forward is a bad influence on Emmy. Dory and Maggot and Demon are doing heroin or meth or Fent. Demon realizes the drugs have real value and that value can be translated into hours of work. Dory does not seem to have this skill or tool.
Currently they are buying their own drugs now and not using Vester's Medicare information any longer. Demon doesn't love needles. He prefers using an RX for drugs to avoid criminal prosecution if they get caught. An older woman Thelma warns Dory that it's easy to OD on some of the medication patches. Demon has the thought of returning to school. Demon's RXs for his knees are still supplying a lot of their legal access to drugs.
Dory goes in to a clinic to get drugs. Demon is stuck in the car with Gyp. Demon doesn't like Dory going in, in her shorts, with all the men in there. When Dory comes out, she's crying and says she misses her dad. She says the man inside is a piece of shit. It seems she has been rejected as far as picking up the drugs they wanted using Demon's prescription from his bad knees. The man inside explained the logic of why they couldn't get the drugs without more fees. She finally confesses the man inside offered to fuck her for free drugs. Days later they are considering this option, although they don't go through with it, at least for now. Demon refers to getting high as "chasing the dragon." The addiction is a full-time job, chasing the high, facing the guilt, smelling your own horrible smell, feeling crushed emotionally and physically, feeling empty, feeling like a monster. Watching Dory have the shakes and seizures while high. They keep trying to stop and they can't, they have delusions. They despise their bed because they can't sleep in it. Then he finds himself, as an act of love, going out to find another hit for Dory, because that is the only thing that can "bring her back." The house is a mess, full of garbage and mice. The laundry is moldy.
"We were storybook orphans on drugs."
They eat wormy apples from the yard, pulling them off the grass. Dory is wearing her dead mom's clothing. Demon is looking for work, anywhere, KFC. Maggot is living back with Mrs. Peggot. She's thin and starting to lose her cognition. Maggot is strung out. June is still looking for Emmy. Meanwhile Maggot's mom is getting out of prison soon.
Tommy is a reliable source of support and happiness for Tommy. Demon goes to visit him. He's with the McCobb family now. Tommy's area is clean and organized. Tommy is making the best of his situation. He considers his room "his own place," even though he's not got a great situation with the McCobb family.
Tommy is working for a newspaper. He does newspaper layout overnight. He puts ads together, and classified ads -- he designs now. He makes borders. He uses ClipArt. He brings the ads to life. Tommy seems motivated by his work. He has clothes that fit him, he has clothes in good repair. He's still dating Sophie, who also works for a newspaper, somewhere in Pennsylvania. Tommy is proud to show Demon around the newspaper office.
Tommy is looking for some truck ClipArt for a truck for sale. Demon draws something up for Tommy to use. Tommy uses it. This begins a pattern of Demon drawing things for Tommy to use for the newspaper layout.
Notes: Another powerful, well-written chapter, full of emotion and drama. The author shows us that Tommy is on a better, different road, that Demon might have taken. Normally we are supposed to feel sorry for Demon, but here the author shows Demon in contrast to Tommy, even though Demon has in fact had "more" than Tommy, for example he got to live with Coach, and he knew his mom. The author is again showing the "barter" nature of the economy, using apples as food, using a medical problem for drugs, using maybe sex for drugs. Druggies are sort of resilient survivors, they suffer so much but like bugs they keep going out for more drugs. Dory and Demon are mirror images of each other, gross and pathetic, unable to help each other.
FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE PLOT SUMMARY
June wants to see Demon. June hasn't seen Emmy in two months. Demon describes June as still looking good from a distance, but looking older from close up. Demon has gotten a shift at Sonic, and Dory is working at a hair salon. Demon's goals are to be functional and Dory's goals seem to be more bare survival level. June expresses how it's difficult to get used to living alone (with Emmy gone).
June expresses how hard it is to leave Emmy alone and Demon says that's the very thing June should do. June disagrees and says it's not fair for Emmy to get so much from June and then reject her. They talk about how Maggot would benefit from having a boyfriend, and June says both she and Mrs. Peggot would support Maggot in a same-sex relationship.
Demon explains that Fast Forward seems to have a magnetic spell over people. Demon says that Fast isn't too involved in drugs directly, but more in selling drugs. June is troubled by this information.
June pushes Demon to answer a question: "Is Emmy taking pills?" Demon says there aren't any kids that age who don't take pills. The only person Demon can think of, not on drugs, is Angus. "They did this to us," June says. She means that the system, Big Pharma, is getting "them" as in everyone. People who are old, hurt, they need most of all an ongoing prescription. There aren't enough doctors, clinics, to see the patients. The patients are left to fend for themselves, and to do that they need their refills, their pills.
Now June explains that companies like Purdue actually target certain doctors to market their drugs to, based on how many pain patients that doctor might see. Demon views his own addiction more as his own problem rather than something foisted upon him.
"Of all the good people I knew, she was probably the best one." This is Demon's explanation of June.
Demon begins working with Tommy on a cartoon strip for the paper. Demon learns that the paper Tommy works on has the traditional AP-type reporting structure where they can select from national stories, to print in the local paper when there is a reference to Kentucky, Virginia, etc. Demon notices that the national articles about this geographic area are usually about abject poverty. This tendency seems to really bother Tommy. Demon explains to Tommy the concept that shit rolls downhill, and the heavy utility for most Americans of having a true loser area to pick on.
Tommy explains how he is concerned because his girlfriend Sophie has been taught to disfavor dating someone from Appalachia.
Now Tommy explains the process of selecting which cartoon strips to run, and how he is required to run a certain strip that seems to make fun of people from Appalachia. This strip is called Stumpy Fiddles, and again it seems to really bother Tommy that he has to run it. Demon makes fun of the strip as being low quality. Tommy challenges Demon to come up with a better comic strip, and Demon takes up the challenge, starts drawing a cartoon strip around a miner with a pick and hardhat, and red bandana. Strong, fast, no cape, runs fast and far over the mountains.
He comes up with an idea for the comic strip about the hero saving an old woman who lacks the money to pay her electric bill, by channeling lightning to restore her energy. He calls the strip Redneck, and signs it Anonymous.
Notes: Another powerful and well-written chapter, with a lot of emotion, especially with Tommy feeling like the opioid epidemic is personal. At the same time, the author is probably slightly overly political here, forgetting about (or choosing not to talk about) the Native American and the Black person who have historically been on the "bottom," of the ladder. The author might have done well to explain the problem of poor whites becoming conservative in the 50's and 60's to make sure that Blacks and Native Americans stayed on the bottom. Give the author credit for exploring the theme of exclusion and the Appalachian badge of dishonor. She would probably say it's not her job to contextualize every political problem but that it's her job to write from Demon's and Tommy's POV. It's also a bit insincere in this chapter how Demon as narrator explains himself as having a thick skin compared to Tommy, when up until now Demon has for the most part blamed the adults in his life for a lot of his problems. Who knows, maybe the author is trying to show that Demon is maturing a bit.
FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY PLOT SUMMARY
Demon pays the light bill, but the gas is leaking. The crappy house seems to represent Dory herself and their decrepit relationship. Demon is still helping with cartoon strips with Tommy's paper. Demon is making money, too, working for Sonic. They are fighting and Dory is still doing opioids.
Demon and Angus meet at a park. Angus is wearing some sort of black top hat, with bike shorts. They have a picnic. Angus is enjoying college. Coach is worried about Demon. U-Haul is spreading rumors around the school, including a rumor about Miss Annie's alleged infidelity. U-Haul is saying Demon somehow witnessed this infidelity. Demon tells Angus that his life with Dory is a shit show. Demon asks Angus to intervene. Angus suggests indirectly that Demon was a fool for thinking Dory would change. "You chose her." The only good thing about their relationship is the sex is still pretty good sometimes.
Demon drives by the high school on the way home, and stops there. He sees Miss Annie's car in the parking lot. He goes in. The bell rings. The football team hits the field. Demon avoids being seen. He sees Annie, taps the horn. She gets in the car. She's hoping he is returning to school. At this point he has only two years more to finish high school. "I'm not a kid," he says. He sees football practice in the background. Annie tells Demon she teaches not for money but to help kids see things differently. Indirectly, Demon is a disappointment to her, because he had the spark to be something more, but he didn't use it.
Demon tells Annie he wasn't part of the rumors of her infidelity. Annie says her husband Mr. Armstrong has a thick skin and has survived things much harder. Annie says she's worried more about the other teacher who is supposedly having an affair with Miss Annie. No infidelity is occurring, but these types of allegations have been made against her and Mr. Armstrong for a long time. Annie reminds Demon that decades ago, blacks and whites were not allowed to inter-marry. Demon wonders why his own heritage (Melungeon) was exempted from this prohibition. Annie says people are always trying to get her husband fired for supposedly being a Communist.
Annie says, "Say Hi to Redneck for me." It's obvious she's seen his comic strip! Annie tells Demon he should sign his real name to his work. "Art is work."
He goes home to Dory. The house is full of garbage and mold. Demon is still supplying the opiates to his marriage by going to the clinic for pain.
"Addiction is not for the lazy." Demon views himself as a very disciplined "fuckhead." He sees himself as resilient, surviving his mom's death, surviving Stoner, surviving foster care. Demon is upset that Dory is stealing from her co-worker, another hairdresser. This is essentially the theme of the whole story, Demon being resilient and then eventually realizing that truth for himself. This is similar to the heart of David Copperfield, an orphan boy surviving various troubles.
His strategy around Dory is he sees her as a doll, as something fragile that he needs to take care of. They talk about marriage while Dory is stoned. He kisses her feet and notices blood on a toe from an injection. Demon imagines Tommy would be his next man at the wedding. Gyp would be the ring bearer. Angus and Thelma would be involved in the wedding. Dory imagines the dress she would wear. She passes out. He props her head up with pillows. {I"m sure it's a horrible omen that he and Dory are fixated on this fantasy]
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If you are enjoying this post, please consider supporting this new delightful and satirical novel, set in the Avenues area of Salt Lake City, Utah. Inspired by Confederacy of Dunces:
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FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE PLOT SUMMARY
"Another week, another shit show." Maggot calls, Demon picks him up, Maggot gives Demon directions to visit a friend, Swap Out. Demon is surprised Maggot knows Swap Out. They go to a drive-thru retail pharmacy, put a cement block through a window, and Swap Out crawls in and steals drugs (Sudafed) from the Walgreen's pharmacy. [The author of this summary remembers a high school friend doing something similar at Bountiful, Utah retailers in the early 1990s, only he would get on the rooftops, drop down into the buildings above the ceiling tiles, then navigate around the stores and drop down into the pharmacies and take opiates. His name was Gary. He did this at least three times. He was caught by police, arrested, and sent to prison. I imagine he got out in time for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.]
A few days later Fast Forward calls and asks Demon to go to Richmond. Demon declines. Fast says he and Emmy have broken up. The next day Wednesday, Tommy says that newspaper readers are responding well to Demon's cartoon. Pinky (Tommy's boss) thinks Tommy is doing the work and gives Tommy a raise.
Demon says it's easy to come up with ideas for the cartoon. Remember the cartoon is Redneck the hero. Kids working in the tobacco fields, getting sick, and then Redneck coming to top the flowers and save the kids. One of these strips starts a tradition of people leaving tobacco flowers on graves (like Tommy had done for his own deceased parents). The cartoon picks up even more attention from a national or syndicated paper.
Tommy finally reveals to his boss Pinky that Demon is the real author or real creator of the cartoon. Pinky wants to meet Demon to make a contract. Demon calls Miss Annie for help. She invites him over. Annie and her husband have a collection of folk art. Demon thinks it's interesting to see his school teachers dressed casually at home. Annie wants to look over any contract Demon is offered, wants to protect him. Apparently, Mr. Armstrong is still under pressure at school for political reasons. Mr. Armstrong and Miss Annie talk about how as a mixed-race couple, they have gotten a lot of negative attention or harassment wherever they have lived/worked. Miss Annie and Mr. Armstrong then encourage Demon to do better in life, to quit dope, to take the cartoon seriously as an opportunity.
Demon and Tommy agree to work on the cartoon together. Demon feels pressure agreeing to a real contract and to making a real commitment. He feels this is a chance to "grow up." If he can work the contract to the end, he'd be eighteen by the end, have money, be an adult, he could marry Dory and be able to take care of her. A few hours later the phone rings and for some reason Rose Dartle is on the phone and she's mad at Demon. Demon for some reason agrees to go over and meet Rose (the author provides absolutely no justification for why he would do this).
Rose gives Demon an update on Fast Forward, who has decided to traffic drugs from Mexican traffickers in Atlanta (cutting out Mouse). Somehow Fast has used Emmy for his "lure" in the business. Fast uses Emmy as bait, to offer her up to have sex with men as an entree to dealing drugs with Fast. Demon has a hard time believing Emmy has changed quite so much. Rose won't back down and says it's true, that Emmy is now "ruint." Rose puts something soggy in Demon's palm. It's a snake bracelet (need to check, is this what Demon bought Emmy a long time ago?). Rose says Fast left Emmy because she was so disgusting.
[This is probably one of the more poorly written chapters in the book. The author moves the plot forward but there aren't new themes developed or old themes deepened. There is insufficient justification in the text for Emmy's downfall. This seems like a convenient moment of pity pornography by the author. Fast's connection to Mexican drug import seems amateurish to write about, at least at this point without more detail or support. At this point it feels like we are waiting for Dory to die for the book to move forward.]