First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they've always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let's just say out of it.
This opening, while humorous, immediately says a great deal about Demon’s circumstances. He is born after his mother passes out in the bathroom. He slides onto the floor and is found by her neighbors, the Peggots. He means quite literally that he got himself born, as he found his way out of his mother. This foreshadows a lot about his life, as he will go on to do a number of things on his own, including locate his grandmother, find a job, and get clean. It is the story’s opening and its establishment of tone.
And if these kids grow up to throw punches at washing machines or each other or even let's say smash a drugstore drive-through window. Crawl in there and take what's there. Tell me how you're going to be surprised. There's your peanut butter sandwich back. Every dog gets his day.
In this moment, which comes at the end of a chapter, Demon describes how resentment and frustration build over time, leading to bad actions. Specifically, he is referring to the way in which children, like himself, who grow up with no support or prospects end up committing crimes or engaging in physical violence. He is trying to explain how years of being scorned logically results in problems down the line, as these kids become angry, bitter adults. He mentions it as a way of saying these actions have a very obvious root cause that often gets overlooked.
The way he looked. Eyes raised up, body tethered by one long thread to the big stormy sky, the whole of him up there with his words, talking to whoever was listening. I've not seen a sight to match it... The man was a giant.
Here Demon describes how he watches Mr. Dick fly his kite. Demon is filled with wonder, as he sees how free Mr. Dick feels in those moments. Mr. Dick writes quotes from his favorite books on his kite and then flies it. Demon sees that in those moments he appears to be transformed, elated at the sight and feeling of the kite soaring in the air. He takes these moments to heart, as it is the first time he sees someone able to transcend harsh circumstances, and experience a pure sort of joy. He calls him "a giant," to emphasize the complete change he undergoes when he does this.
Coach was a big guy with big hands holding the world by its neck, with every game a win or else the world ends. Storm in a shot glass type of thing. And Angus was the opposite. A whole ocean, dark and chill.
Here, Demon uses contrasting metaphors to describe Coach and Angus. He says Coach is a "storm in a shot glass" to illustrate his intense personality, something he observes coming out particularly in football season. He says Angus is "dark and chill" like "a whole ocean," meaning she is calm and mysterious. His description of her ends up being shockingly apt, as he learns more and more surprising things about her as the novel progresses. His comparison of them to natural elements, however different, also suggests that both Angus and Coach are commandingly strong personalities.
This is what I would say if I could, to all the smart people of the world with their dumb hillbilly jokes: We are right here in the stall. We can actually hear you.
Here, Demon remarks on the way people make jokes about poor Southerners. He compares it to the moment in school when a kid is being made fun of in the bathroom on the assumption that they aren't there, and then the kid walks out of a stall, to everyone's embarrassment. He says that to underscore the fact that these jokes are ignorant and hurtful, as they are acutely aware of them at all times. He says this to both shame the people who make these jokes and also to remind them that they cannot kid themselves that those jokes are harmless, as they perpetuate cruel stereotypes.
I’ve tried in this telling, time and again, to pinpoint the moment where everything starts to fall apart. Everything, meaning me. But there’s also the opposite, where some little nut cracks open inside you and a tree starts to grow. Even harder to nail. Because that thing’s going to be growing a long time before you notice. Years maybe. Then one day you say, Huh, that little crack between my ears has turned into this whole damn tree of wonderful.
In this moment, near the end of the book, Demon looks back on his life and says that it is difficult to find exactly where things began to turn around. For the large number of things that obviously went very wrong, he says that, more subtly, there was some small turning point when things began to improve. This is the setup to him discussing his time in rehab and his eventual, hard-won, sobriety. This moment is important as he takes notice of when his life got better, while also depicting himself as a careful reader of his own story.
One thing I learned from Mr. Strong while striving heartily remain uneducated: a good story doesn't just copy life, it pushes back on it... It's why I draw.
In this passage, Demon stakes a claim for the transformative power of art. He believes that a "good story" has a kind of responsibility to "push back" on the life it imitates. In reference to his own story, he seems to be saying that his telling of his story is a refusal to accept it as an inevitable tragedy. This comes through in both content and tone, as he mostly maintains a humorous tone throughout, however bleak the subject matter while also describing the slow improvement of his life towards the book's conclusion. For Demon, telling his story is a way of reclaiming it. This can also be read as Kingsolver writing about the power of stories.
I've made any number of false starts with this mess. You think you know where your own troubles lie, only to stare down the page and realize, no. Not there. It started earlier. Like these wars going back to George Washington and whiskey. On in my case, chapter 1. First, I got myself born. The worst of the job was up to me. Here we are.
In this quote, Demon describes how he realized that his problems really began earlier than he could have initially imagined. He means this both personally and historically. In his own narrative, he is referring to the fact that he had struggles from the moment he was born, as he was forced to push himself out of his mother's womb without her assistance or awareness. But his reference to "George Washington and whiskey" is part of his commentary on historical oppression, as the economic and political forces that have created rural poverty greatly predate him. What means, ultimately, is that his "false starts" have been attempts to figure out where everything went wrong, but he has realized, each time, that things were wrong for a long while before the story's main events.
I put a lot of emotion and contrast shading in the last panel, where you see the miner hero out in the dark woods, watching the happy old couple on their lit-up porch. I named my strip Red Neck. Signed, Anonymous.
In this quote, Demon is describing the first time he draws a comic strip for Tommy's newspaper. It is a cartoon that depicts the heroics of a coal miner called Red Neck, who helps an elderly couple get their lights back on after their power has been shut off. He draws it in an attempt to offer a more heroic and dignified vision of Southern life. The care that he puts into the final panel emphasizes the joy that he derives from doing this work.
That's where we are. Well past the Christiansburg exit. Past Richmond, and still pointed east. Headed for the one big thing I know is not going to swallow me alive.
This is the book's final line. Demon tells the reader where he is at the present moment and leaves them, as he waits to finally reach the ocean. He is particularly excited, as he notes that the ocean is "the one big thing" that won't "swallow" him, meaning it is something vast but beautiful, something he has waited to see for such a long time that is finally becoming a reality. It is a bright ending to a dark story, as he has come through his struggles and is now on his way to fulfill a childhood dream with a person who loves deeply.
