Summary
Demon begins to slowly recover from his injury, but now depends on painkillers to get through the day. He starts playing football again, but struggles to maintain the same level of ability. The homecoming dance comes up and multiple girls express interest in Demon. Demon asks Dori and when she says yes, he is over the moon with excitement. They go to the game together and his team loses. They go to the dance briefly and then leave to have sex in his car. Demon says his memory of the night is foggy because of drugs and alcohol. He remembers sleeping together and her injecting fentanyl.
Maggot calls Demon shortly after to say Mr. Peggot is dying. Demon goes to their house to say goodbye. Maggot is upset because the last conversation they had was an argument. Demon and Dori attend the funeral. Emmy shows up late and gets into a fight with a girl named Rose. Maggot tells Demon that she dumped Hammer and started dating Fast Forward. Demon becomes entirely dependent on painkillers to get through the day. Demon runs into his friend Tommy at the local drugstore. He tells Demon he's working as a custodian in a newsroom and has a girlfriend in another city.
Christmas approaches and Demon looks for the perfect gift for Dori. His grades slip, as his presence in school begins to fall off. He gets roped into taking a beach trip with Fast Forward, Maggot, and Emmy. He quickly realizes it is likely a front for Fast Forward's drug dealing. One night, Emmy peels off from the group and tells Demon that everyone is addicted to opioids. She says that June has cut a few users off and they've threatened her. She says Maggot is doing hard drugs and one of her close friends has gotten pregnant. He feels bleak about everyone's suffering. They don't make it to the beach, as Fast Forward appears to lose interest in the trip.
Demon returns home and spends the night with Dori. He gets a call from Angus saying the school has taken note of his accumulated absences. He comes home and finds U-Haul waiting for him. They have a disturbing conversation where U-Haul says that he has leverage on Coach and wants to sleep with Angus. This enrages the Demon. Shortly after this, Dori's father dies. Dori holds onto his pain medication. His grandmother, taking note of his declining academic performance, cuts him off. He decides to move in with Dori. Angus asks what he is going to do, suggesting he try to get off painkillers. They talk about his future. She says she's happy that Dori makes him happy, which moves him greatly. Emmy disappears with Fast Forward. Dori and Demon become constantly dependent on drugs. They stop going to Dr. Watts' clinic to pick up more after Watts tries to pressure Dori into sleeping with him for a prescription.
Tommy moves up in the newspaper hierarchy, doing the layout for ads. One day he needs clip art for an ad and Demon draws it for him. Demon visits June and they talk about Emmy being missing. She asks if Emmy is taking drugs and he says everyone around him is. She says that she wants him to understand that the pharmaceutical companies did this to them. June also tells Demon that his father actually died attempting a high dive at a local gorge. He also starts drawing a comic strip for the newspaper. He makes it about a coal miner named Red Neck who helps an elderly couple get their lights back on after the power company shuts it off. Demon’s life with Dori becomes grim and largely joyless. Their house is dirty and dilapidated and she shows little interest in anything besides her dog and getting high.
Demon goes back to the high school and sees Ms. Annie. She encourages him to keep drawing and invites him over for dinner. Seeing her and Mr. Armstrong together, he sees what a healthy and happy relationship can look like. She helps him negotiate a contract for his comic strip. Rose, Fast Forward’s sometimes girlfriend, tells Demon to meet up with her on the side of a highway. She says Emmy was with him in Atlanta and that she was being used as a lure for his drug dealing. She adds that eventually Fast Forward abandoned her.
He doesn’t believe her but then she gives him a snake anklet he gave Emmy years ago. He tells June this update and she sounds angry but primarily relieved that Emmy is still alive. Tommy tells Demon he needs to get clean if wants to keep working with him. June receives a tip about Martha Coldiron, a girl who Emmy helped get an abortion, and they pick her up from a run-down house, hoping to get information about Emmy. Martha is in terrible shape when they pick her up. Demon comes home and Dori tells him she is pregnant. June, Demon, Maggot, and June’s brother Everett travel to Atlanta. They pick up a strung-out Emmy in a drug den and take her home.
Analysis
Addiction is a major theme in this part of the book. Demon and everyone around him is addicted to painkillers. June asks if Emmy is doing drugs and Demon says every single person in his life is, regardless of age. His own story is indicative of how addiction creeps up on many of the characters, as he is given drugs for an injury and becomes increasingly dependent on them. Other characters, like Dori and Maggot, follow a similar trajectory, gradually increasing in the amount of their use. Kingsolver uses this incredibly grim part of the book to explore how drugs can become an increasingly big part of an addict’s life, eventually taking it over entirely.
Community is also an important theme in these chapters. Multiple people, including Ms. Annie, Tommy, and Emmy, point out to Demon that his relationship with Dori is hindering his ability to function. They say that quitting drugs is hard independently, but is essentially impossible while living with someone else who is addicted. Demon becomes increasingly unhappy in the relationship but is worried that Dori would die without him. Like his friendship with Fast Forward, this romantic relationship makes it hard for Demon to get clean and stay that way. This part shows the harmful impact the relationship ultimately has on Demon, as it contributes directly to his falling deeper and deeper into the clutches of addiction.
Poverty is also a key theme in this section. June talks to Demon about how pharmaceutical companies targeted Lee County. She says her ex-boyfriend, Kent, received lists of people from local clinics complaining about pain, as they knew they make money off of these prescriptions. She says that they were aware of the likelihood of people becoming addicted and actively pushed opioids, knowing there were a high number of economically disadvantaged people suffering from chronic health issues. Dovetailing with the book’s criticisms of generational wealth, her comments reveal how the opioid crisis was engineered by the calculated cruelty of pharmaceutical companies turning a profit by getting people addicted to painkillers.
Despair also plays a major role in this part of the book. Kingsolver effectively showcases how many of the characters turn to drugs looking for solace. Dori cares for her ailing father alone and has no one but Demon, and her dog, in her life. Her drug use gradually increases as her circumstances become increasingly bleak. Likewise, as Demon’s performance on the football field and in school slips away, his dependence on painkillers grows. As with many of Demon’s other problems, his despair ultimately fuels his addiction issues, as he looks for ways to cope with his diminished life.
As the book leads up to its climax, the reader finds Demon at his most isolated. He watches the lives of everyone around him fall to pieces as the opioid crisis ravages his county. His story delves deep into the despair of the world around him, as his life begins to fall apart. He struggles to find solace in community, as almost everyone in his life is facing similar struggles with addiction, poverty, and despair.
