Bookshop Bombshells
Meet Andrea and Elizabeth, two former booksellers, who still share a love of books.
Every other week, they will get together and tell each other about the book they are reading in hopes of helping you discover your next great read.
Bookshop Bombshells
The Devil and Demon
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This week, the girls get depressed. Andrea reads the The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias and Elizabeth reads Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
Welcome to Bookshop Bombshells. I'm Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_02I'm Andrea.
SPEAKER_00And this is a podcast where each of us read a book. And we tell you about it.
SPEAKER_02And we don't spoil it. Just in case you want to read it. We'd like for you to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Please read our books. Um please just keep reading. I mean, I think I've actually notice a lot of like interest in reading. It seems like it's like having like a comeback. A moment. Yeah. Like people are like, shit sucks. Let's read, like, let's like get lost in a book, and I really like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. A good little escapism. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I went, I went to my work book club um this week, and there were like tons of people. Usually there's like three or four of us, and it's like two of them like didn't read a book, you know, but they, you know, always want to join just in case they hear about a book that they're like interested in. Yeah. But there was like, I think there were six or seven of us. Like it was pretty impressive. So I think um, I think people are getting more into reading. I love it. Yeah, me too. Um, anything new with you? I know we're we're a week late. Sorry everyone. We're trying our best here.
SPEAKER_02We're just doing our best.
SPEAKER_00We're doing our best.
SPEAKER_02We appreciate the patience. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, new. No, not really. I'm like getting better at audiobooking right now. So that's that's that's all I got going for me.
SPEAKER_00Good, good. I'm not doing so hot audio booking. I've I've started a lot and then like haven't finished them. Yeah. So like I tried that um, I tried that Joe Hill book, the Heart Shaped Box. Yeah. Decided it wasn't for me, didn't finish. Now I had a friend from Book Club recommend the King Sorrow book, um, which apparently like everyone loves. I've never heard of it. This is a newer one of his. I don't know when it came out, but it's a newer one. I remember it. It's got like a dragon on the cover. Um, or it looks like a dragon. I like started that, and it is better than Heart Shaked Box, but I just don't think I like Joe Hill. That's fair enough.
SPEAKER_02You're you're like not required.
SPEAKER_00I don't yeah, I don't think I'm gonna finish it. But I did finish Knock Knock Open Wide. What did you think? I loved it. I would tell like everyone about it. Like anyone that listens, I'm like, you need to read Neil Sharpson. Um, because I love Burial Tide. I think Knock Knock Open Wide was better. Like it was really yeah, like it it was um Burial Tide is still really good. I'm still gonna read I still think you should. Um, but I did like like highly enjoy Knock Knock Open Wide. And then I actually did start, he's got another book called When the Sparrow Falls.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, I saw that book.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I started that, I haven't finished it. It's a little, it's a little different. I I don't know if it's his first book or what. Um just not the same. Yeah, it's not the same. It's not horror, it's sci-fi. Okay, and it's kind of um like it's kind of like Battlestar Galactica meets like Blade Runner kind of.
SPEAKER_02That sounds cool.
SPEAKER_00Does that make sense? Yeah, it's it's but it's it's a it's a little bit more sci-fi. Um I haven't finished it, but I do plan on it. Um I think that's all I've really all I've tried since we last met. That's fair. Uh so uh we're at your house. So I go first. So you go first.
SPEAKER_02Uh what did you read? So I read a book called The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Um I recognize that name. Has he written anything else?
SPEAKER_02I didn't look at it. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00I just wasn't sure.
SPEAKER_02I don't think I had heard or seen knowingly a book by him. I just like stumbled upon this somehow. Um and actually, like, I wasn't gonna do this one for our podcast because it was like super sad and full of like an insane amount of violence. Uh and a lot of shock chapters that were in there. But uh I started to kind of get real partial to the some of the characters, which is they're not good people. Yeah uh they have they have a lack of morality, I would say.
SPEAKER_00But those are fun sometimes.
SPEAKER_02And then when I finished the book, the ending was just so like what the what? Uh I like it bothered me for a couple days when I finished it. And so I was like, okay, I'm I'm I'll do it. What was it called again? The devil The Devil Takes You Home. Okay, okay. Um so at the beginning of the book, we are in a doctor's office. Um there is the main guy, Mario, and his wife, Melissa. They're getting news that their four-year-old daughter has leukemia. Real sad from the get-go. The doctor has a really soft delivery for this, but he's like, you you can wrap a shotgun in flowers, but that doesn't make the blast any less less lethal. Like he has the author has a lot of like really good wording. Yeah. I don't know. What is that like a phrase? Metaphories, metaphors, metaphories, metaphories, similes, metaphors, metaphories. They're devastated. Um and they caught it after it had progressed a bit. Um, so Anita, their daughter, is hospitalized. Um and they're only like a few weeks into their new normal for their life, like in and out of the hospital and stuff. Uh, Mario's HR specialist from his job called him to let him know that they were letting him go since he missed so much work.
SPEAKER_00What? Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Um, and they already had like mounting hospital bills, and uh they didn't have insurance now. This is sad. So he like sent in a few resumes and he hadn't heard anything back. Um he called his old co-worker Brian, who uh is now a dope dealer and a habitual meth smoker. Uh he had gotten fired from the previous job for selling pirated movies out of the trunk of his car during his lunch breaks.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_02Uh and after he got fired, he was trying to get Mario into some like shady uh credit card scheme business. Uh and Mario was like, No. So Brian's like, if you ever need money, hit me up. Uh so you know they chatted and like between Mario and Melissa taking shifts, like sleeping in their car at the hospital because they couldn't afford to get a hotel room. Yeah. And like the hospital's in Houston, and they're like driving back to Austin to do laundry at their house and stuff like that. It's a drive. Yeah, it's like really sad. Um so Brian like answers the phone when Mario calls and just says, How much do you need? And Mario was like, As much as I can get. And Brian's all like, Well, are you willing to do anything? And Mario's like, Yeah. Uh so Brian comes over to Mario's house in Austin with an address on a crumpled up piece of paper and a picture of a guy. Um he also brings him a gun. So Brian walks Mario through how to get the job done and to make sure that he gets rid of the gun was very important. He had to teach him how to use a gun because Mario was like, what? Yeah. Uh he could collect collects uh six stacks, so that was a thousand thousand.
SPEAKER_00That's not enough money to kill someone, I guess.
SPEAKER_02I assume, are that I assume it's kill someone? Well, it was enough to cover Anita's medication. Okay. So um Brian's like, this is a bad guy, he's scum, you'd be doing the world a favor, like, don't get in your head about it.
SPEAKER_00So Mario like Batman, you're a vigilante.
SPEAKER_02Like that's how like Brian okay's things like that with himself. So he's like trying to tell Mario the same thing. Yeah. So Mario does the deed, he ditches the gun, he's like stress driving back to their house. Um and then he learns that Anita had passed away. I know. Smiley like a frowning face with lots of tears coming out of it. Uh so like Mario and Melissa's lives are like grief, loath loathing, resentment like between these each other for losing their daughter. And um, they had a bit of a spat a couple weeks later in their kitchen. Um she was like not talking kindly to him about him, and he pushed her to the floor. Like immediately regret it. Um he knew it was like the worst mistake he's ever gonna make.
SPEAKER_00Um and then she left him.
SPEAKER_02So he gets in the shower and then falls asleep on their couch, and in between that Melissa left a note, like packed her stuff, left, and said, Don't come looking for me. The thing that held us together is now food for the worms. And I was like, So Brian comes over at one point. Um, who Brian was the only friend that showed up at Anita's funeral, but he like stayed at his car the whole time. But I was like, Mario doesn't have a lot of friends, so um, they chatted about everything, they chatted about nothing. Brian said that his girlfriend's sober because she's seven months pregnant, and um Mario like they started talking about that when Mario was having like a really intense grief moment. Um Brian had another photo and address. He was like, You can kill him or don't. Um Mario was al already like paranoid that the cops were gonna show up to get him for either either being a wife beater or a murderer. So um, but they never came. So in some time he had killed four more men on Brian's hit list. Uh Brian called him with another job. Um, he was like, This one's different, it pays real money.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, six thousand dollars was not enough. I I would not be killing someone for six thousand. I mean, I wouldn't be killing someone, probably.
SPEAKER_02I mean, he was doing it for his daughter, like he was trying to he was he was like the reason he didn't have a thing that was nice, but uh he quote unquote didn't have a choice. Yeah, quote unquote. Yeah, quote unquote. Uh so they go over to Brian's house. Um Mario meets Stephanie, Brian's girlfriend, and they chat a little bit, but then they go into the back of the house and they meet Wonka. And Wonka goes over the details of this job. Um, they're gonna steal a ton of money from the Mexican cartel. Mario's like, great plan. I don't think terrible idea. I don't want to get involved with the cartel.
SPEAKER_00I would not do that at all.
SPEAKER_02So uh Wonka's like, well, it's not the cartels until until they get it. So we're actually like intercepting it before it gets to them, and da da da da da.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure that's not how the cartel sees it.
SPEAKER_02Um so that's where the story kind of starts. Like with uh they the trio goes to do this job. Um there's a bit, like there's like bits of it. It's like it's like it's like making fun of myself. Uh it's very violent. Like there's a point in it where they end up in some southern Texas truck stop barbecue stand, and there's like these really racist white guys there, and Wonka just like beats the hell out of one of them, and it was like, pull your own teeth out. Like you're gonna remember this, and da da da. And um there's like other scenes where they uh they like go to a place before they go to Wonka's mom's house, and like there's there's like a lady there that's like cutting off her grandson's toe, and Mario has to like play it cool. What or like he'll get shot.
SPEAKER_00When was this book written? I is it new or older? I didn't look. You didn't look um but uh I'm just curious if yeah, how long it's been around.
SPEAKER_02That was really I'll look, I'll I'll I'll get back to you when we go over what we read today. Um and then like they meet Wonka's mom, and she's like there's a lot of like supernatural spiritual things that happen in here too. Like uh which like it just keeps you on an edge the entire and it makes you go, wait a second, what it it's like it's kind of like it was wild. Um but in Wonka's mom's house, there's like they move the table and there's the ton that's how you get to the tunnels that like the cartel was using to move people and stuff like that. It'd been there since like his dad got into that mess. And oh Brian is also not smoking meth for this trip, so he's going through withdraw. Um but yeah, like the book kind of like blew me away. I like I like I said, I didn't want to do it because it was I after doing Tender is the Flesh, I was like, I don't know that I want to do another like really violent book for the podcast, but um, but it just like kept me on edge the whole time and the ending was wild, so cool. Yeah, sounds really interesting. Yeah, I liked the audiobook for it, the narrator of that was really good. Um, there's a lot of Spanish in the book. Uh-huh. Uh and um like you don't have to know Spanish to read it because it kind of like fills in the Yeah, they do a good job of translating almost.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, I've read books like that before too. Uh-huh. Where it's like almost like giving you a it's like it sneaks it in really well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How they sort of translate.
SPEAKER_02But it was really good.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Well, awesome. I also did a depressing book.
SPEAKER_02Oh, let's hear about it.
SPEAKER_00Which I originally actually had a different book in mind um that I had already started and I was like a hundred pages in. And like just not enough really happened within the first hundred pages that I didn't want to do it for the pot. I liked the book. It's called The Yiddish Policeman's. Oh, it's like Michael Shabron Shabon It's called The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon. Chabon. Um and I started it, but yeah, it was it was also it was like kind of a little bit of a confusing book. It's like a murder mystery. Um but it's like takes place in this sort of like alternate reality where like Jewish people were basically like after World War II were kind of like all sent to like basically live in Alaska. And so it's this like Jewish state in Alaska. Huh. Um, and so the book is basically that Alaska basically wants its land back, and so they're having to like have like another, like the Jews are getting kicked out of Alaska. Um, but within that, it's a murder mystery with a detective and everything.
SPEAKER_02That's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_00So it was cool, yeah. I was really into it, but it was kind of like a hundred pages in. I was like, it was a lot more of just like explaining the situation. And I was like, I don't know if this is like I want to read this, but this is not necessarily something I wanted to do for the podcast. So I picked up another book that I had for a while now, and I think I had read something recently about it, and I was like, okay, I'll do that one. Um I did Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. So I had never read, um, so this is based on uh David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. So it's like a retelling, like a modernized retelling of David Copperfield. Yeah. Um, and I haven't actually read her like Poison Wood Bibles, kind of the one that I remember of hers. I hadn't read it, but I she's amazing. I mean, the book the the book actually says winner of the Pulitzer Prize. So I mean she's she's a great author. Like she's I will want to. I'm just a little concerned about more depressing stuff. So I'm like, she's great, but it's depressing.
SPEAKER_02Need of a palette cleansing. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like this, this um this was like kind of rough. Uh I've told you a little bit of what's going on, but I've had a couple like really hard hits recently that were just like I needed I need something a little more uplifting, and this was not that cool. So like I will recommend like if you're going through a depression, don't read this book. Um, if you're doing great, try this book, try it out. It might depress you though, I don't know. Um, but I will say, like, it is like the writing is fantastic. So it's so having never read David Copperfield, anyone listening, just keep that in mind. So all this is brand new to me. Um, it's told from like the point of view of like an 11-year-old boy for the most part. Um, and he lives in like Virginia uh area. I think I kind of picture them like kind of appalachiant types. Um, so when I picked up this book, like literally the first sentence like hooked me. I was like, this is it, like this is the book I'm gonna do. Um, so like the first sentence is first I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they've always given me that much. The worst job was up to me. My mother, let's just say, out of it. So basically, yeah, like his first, the first his first mistake, his first mistake was being born. Um, so if you had seen his mother any other day, she'd be on the porch with bleach blonde hair, smoking palm alls she was 18 and all on her own and pregnant as it gets. Uh so the day that she wasn't on her porch was the day that Nance Peggett banged on the door, barged inside, and found her pass out on the floor with the baby already coming out.
SPEAKER_01Oh man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, so Mrs. Peggett would tell him later that he was born still inside the sack that babies float in pre-life, trying to punch himself out like a prize fighter. I didn't know this was a thing. You could be like born inside a sack.
SPEAKER_02That happened in my book.
SPEAKER_00Oh, really? I didn't know that was a thing. Like, I didn't even know that was possible. So I was like kind of that way. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. So um he so he said, like a lot, I have a lot of quotes in here because like the writing is great. The po the kid is really entertaining. Like, like he's like entertaining, he's funny. It's just what's happening to him is sad. Like that makes sense. Like he's not, I mean, he is sad a little bit, but he's human. Yeah, exactly. Um, but yeah, he said to me, uh, that says I had a fighting chance. Long odds, yes, I know. If a mother is lying in her own piss and pill bottles while they're slapping the kids, she shunted out, telling them, look alive. Likely the bastard is doomed. Um, but according to Mrs. Peggett, um, that was one piece of good luck with the baggy birth. It's a promise from God that you will never drown. So he's not sure if that's the reason, but he'd always been like obsessed with the ocean. Um, and so he'd but he'd never actually seen it. So um that's like throughout the book, he's like trying to like, is can we go to the ocean? They're like, No, it's the other way. Um, so his name is Damon. Um, he's from Lee County, which is between a coal camp and a settlement people call right poor. So his best friend uh was Mrs. Peggett's grandson, a boy everyone called Maggot. Everyone has like a name, like they have like their real name and they have like their nickname. Um so Maggot is actually Matt Peg Matt Peggett, so everyone just called him Maggot. Um, and his mother is currently in Goochland Women's Prison. Oh, so that's I just I love Gooch Land. So great. Yeah. So uh Damon loves superheroes, he prefers Marvel over DC. Wolverine is his favorite. So I think this takes place in like the 90s. Like uh the do you remember the X Men TV show like cartoon? Um so he like loves that. Um so when Damon's mother tells his Birth story. It's different from Mrs. Peggett's. And uh, but Damon never really believed his mom's story considering that she was passed out for the event. Um, but she told him that the day he was born, her baby daddy's mother showed up out of the blue. Uh, his father's family were uh snake-handling Baptist, and she told him that they would beat the tar out of the kids and wives with whatever object fell to hand, the Holy Bible itself, not out of the question. So um, the grandmother shows up, the mom was like already experiencing labor pains, so she had started drinking for the pain and had taken some Vicodin for good measure.
SPEAKER_02All right.
SPEAKER_00Um, so grandma shows up hootin' and hollering about the den of vice her dead son's only child is gonna be born in, and she's gonna come and take her away and raise her up decent. So it's interesting that the grandma thinks that she's gonna have a girl. Um, but basically, you know, she drives her away. Um the his mom has never really talked about his dad's family or what killed him. So all Damon knew was that his dad died in an accident before he was born in a place called Devil's Bathtub. So, because of the visit from the grandma, Damon's mom, um she lived in fear of losing custody of Damon. So she went to rehab after birth, after she gave birth to rehab, um, and gave it 100%, gave and gave again over the years, uh, getting to be an expert at rehab, like they say. Oh, yeah. So Damon grew up with his mother living next door to the Peggets. Um, he called Mrs. Peggett Mama, which in my head is like Mimaw. Do you have do you have a Mimaw? Your mama? Mama. Mama. Yeah, that's it's like Mama, the W. We had a I I don't have a Mimaw, but that's like what my stepmom, her grandkids call her Mee Mama.
SPEAKER_02Um we used to call my brother-in-law's mom mama.
SPEAKER_00Mama.
SPEAKER_02Or my sister did.
SPEAKER_00Um, so he thought that all kids got a mama, mama. I like can't even say it.
SPEAKER_02I don't know how. I'm like mama. I can or organically, but not like thinking about it.
SPEAKER_00Um so he thought all kids got a mama, uh, along with the caseworker and free lunch and the canned beanie weenies they gave you in a bag to take home for weekends. Um so without any real family of his own, except for his mom, like how was he supposed to get one? So he got to share maggots. Um Mrs. Mrs. Peggett was the only one that actually kept using his real name. Uh everyone after even everyone else had stopped, even his mom. And with a name like Damon, it didn't take very long for everyone to start calling him Demon. And when his copper wire hair started growing in, they started calling him Little Copperhead, and thus Demon Copperhead started catching on.
SPEAKER_01Aww.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um so Demon's mom starts dating this dude named Merle Stone. And after that, everything changes. Um she was 18 when she had Demon. And uh by the time we're like kind of starting the story, he's like a lot. I think he's he turns eleven, so I think he's 10 right now. Okay. Um so she likes him, thinks he's a good man. You know, dating a woman with a child is like, oh, you know, she could only be so lucky. Um so he goes by Stoner, and uh Demon was instructed that he had to like him. End of story. Like no options. No options. You like him, that's it. Um so Stoner looked like a version of Mr. Clean with a shaved head, big biceps, and gauged ears. Apparently, he could grow hair, but he preferred to shave it, like he preferred how it looked, um, which supposedly made him like even more of a dreamboat. I don't know why. They're like, oh, he chooses to be bald. How bright is it? Is that like a the rock? Is that how the rock is? Like he chooses to be bald? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. I didn't know that anyone did that. Okay. My husband's bald, I can say that. Okay. Uh so Stoner like love bombs his mom. He's just like dishing her out all these compliments. She's just like this hot mama. He calls Demon like, you know, her little prince and like his majesty and stuff. Yeah. Um, so when the peggets offer to take Demon with them to Knoxville that summer to see their daughter June, Demon's mom agrees, probably happy to get alone time with Stoner. So the Peggets go to Knoxville with Demon and Maggot, and uh Maggot's aunt June is a nurse and one of the only Peggett kids who kind of like made it out and made something of themselves. Um, since you know, Maggot's mom's in prison. They also had like another son that had died of from undiscussed reasons. They should all talk about it. Um and so in Knoxville, Demon learns about what happened to Maggot's mom and why she ended up in prison. This is messed up, I will warn you. I should I say trigger warning? Probably trigger warning. Okay. So uh Maggot's mom, her name is Mariah Peggett, and uh she fell for the wrong guy. Uh she was apparently not the most attractive of the Peggett daughters. I think they had seven kids. I don't remember how many daughters, but apparently all the daughters are like super hot, and she's like the least attractive of them all. Which doesn't mean she's ugly, she's just like kind of grown up with this like chip on her shoulder. Yeah. Um so when Romeo Blevins started paying her attention, she just falls head over heels for him. He's older. I I think she's still in high school. So um Romeo was very attractive, and Mariah felt like she won the lottery, and he acted that way too. Like she'd like he'd won the lottery. Wait, I said that wrong. Dang it. Mariah felt like she won the lottery, and he acted that way too, like she'd won the lottery. So he's like, Yeah, you're lucky to have me.
SPEAKER_02Like Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So Mrs. Peggett warned Variah that he was bad news. So when he got her pregnant, Miss Peggett tells her um that she's been warned and not to come crying back to her when things go south. So Mariah has the baby with Romeo and starts feeling less and less like she won the lottery. She's tired, and Romeo is staying out late, picking up women, not helping her with the baby. So one night she calls him out about this and he loses it. He drags her outside, ties her up on the porch, gets out his handgun, like rolls around her mouth, rips her shirt open, tells her that she should be wearing sexier bras instead of these ugly nursing bras. Like he's just, you know. So he leaves her on the porch that night and just like leaves. Um, little Maggot is still inside crying for his mom. So that first time he left her out there for two hours. Um, but then it happens again. And this next time it's winter, and when Romeo leaves her tied up on the porch, he leaves the front door open. Maggot is now not only crying inside for his mother, but after a few hours he goes quiet, and Mariah's like sure that the baby's gonna die because it's just so cold. And yeah, he just left the door open. So she remembers how to pray. And when Romeo comes back three and a half hours later, she makes a plan. She'll put on a show, let Romeo believe that he's answered to all of her prayers. But when she's free, she sneaks a blade out of Romeo's truck. It's like an X Acto knife. Um, she tapes it to her butt. So she'll be prepared the next time Romeo decides to tie her up again. And when he does, she waits until he passes out cold and then gets to work. She slices up his beautiful face from corner of his mouth to his jawbone into like a jeep, like joker smile. So she never thought he would press charges. Like she's she's the abused woman in the in the situation. Like she's just, you know.
SPEAKER_02And she's punished.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Um, she also never thought he would win, uh, but he acted like the baby wasn't his, and um, this was like before DNA, and that she was like jealous that he was seeing all these other women, and she was like some sort of crazy stalker. Like it wasn't even like they were dated, like he didn't even act like they were like together. Um what a jerk. I know. So she gets a 12-year sentence for that. Dang. Yeah, and so Maggot has to be raised by his grandparents. So um, while Damon is in Knoxville with the Peggets, his mom marries Stoner and they go on a honeymoon.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And all of a sudden, Stoner's attitude towards Damon, I go back and forth between Demon and Damon, apparently.
SPEAKER_02I think it's referred to both ways. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, he's mostly like it depends on who's talking to him. Because yeah, Miss Peggett calls him Damon. Most people, if they don't know him, call him Damon. Um, but everyone that he knows calls him Demon. Um, so Stoner's attitude just like completely flips. All of a sudden, Demon is now an arrogant little shit with a bad attitude that needs to be knocked around and to learn a lesson. And Demon's mom is per like powerless to stop him. So anytime she tries to step in, he throws it in her face that drunks and pillheads are like so good at taking care of their kids.
SPEAKER_02Like what a jerk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he basically just like I saw that common. Yeah, and he's he's just like a huge and and demon is just like brewing inside with hatred for Stoner. Um so to top it all off, you know, Stoner decides he's like taking over like the parenting of Demon. Um and he decides that Demon can't play with Maggot anymore. So thankfully they still get to see each other at school, but like they can't. He can't go over to the Pegas anymore. He doesn't have his Meme Mall anymore, basically. It's really messed up. So one day after school, after like a big blow-up that ended with demon that ended with Demon being locked in his room, Stoner busts through the door and tells him your mom wants to see you. He hadn't even realized that she was home. He went out into the living room yelling your name, but she's not responding. Then he sees a gin bottle on the table. Oh shit. He finds her in the bedroom, passed out, not dead because that's the first thing he knows to check. He sees a pill bottle on the bedside table, not empty, which is a good sign. That means that she was just going for the Cadillac high and not total checkout. But she could still get there anyway. So he screams at Stoner to call 911, and Stoner stupidly asks why. And he said, Christ, you ignorant asshole, because she could have OD'd. At that point, he wasn't thinking about the ignorant asshole comment and what it will give him in terms of a beating from Stoner, but he already knows life as they've lived is over.
SPEAKER_02Shit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that's just the beginning. Yeah. It um goes he has like a lot of ups and downs. Um and it does feel like anytime something's going good for him, that you're just waiting for like the shoe to drop. Like good things don't happen to this kid. So like something good is yeah, something good is happening. What what's gonna happen to like just bring him down? So it's poor kid. Yeah, it's really sad. Um yeah, uh, I really liked, I mean, I like I said, like it's a really yeah, it's a good it's a good narrative. Like the voice of Demon is really good. The way that he talks is like, it's it's like I don't know if you've ever read where they don't use like proper editing, like like it's hard to explain in a way, but like it's just like written like um I was trying to think of a book for an example because I know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02I can't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's just like written like a stream of thought. Like it's not like broken up into and these and then she said and I said, it's like it's like all in one, just like long, it's almost like a long sentence sometimes. And I like that because it feels like it's someone's diary that you're reading.
SPEAKER_02It's authentic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. It feels like you're like, it doesn't feel like you're reading a book, it feels like you're reading someone's narrative, someone's diary, someone's like just internal monologue almost.
SPEAKER_02I like I'm gonna have to I have to read the Poison Wood Bible.
SPEAKER_00I want to read the Poisonwood Bible, but I need to make sure that it's I need to check to see how depressing that is because I feel like this lady probably is just real good at depressing. She's real good at making people real sad. Yeah. I will say I tried, I was on Reddit and someone it was so sad, someone um their house had burned down, and they lost three of their cats in the fire. And so it was like they were on Reddit basically being like, I need something to read that's gonna like help me get through this. And I was like, this is the not that that happened to me, that didn't happen, but but it was like but it's like this is what I need. So I'm like looking through all of the posts trying to find something, and there was one, which I still might read it, but it just wasn't I don't know, like sometimes when you're like extra depressed, you don't want something super uplifting. No, you don't know. If that makes sense, like it's like seems too silly.
SPEAKER_02You don't want a palette cleanser while you're depressed, you know.
SPEAKER_00You need something that's like yeah, if it's too if it's too silly, too easy going, it just feels like we're like, well, this is it's like too much of a disconnect between how you're feeling and what the book is. So the what I had tried based on that recommendation was it's called A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping. Um it seemed cute and fun, but I just wasn't in the mood, in the mood for it. Yeah. I will say one thing I did want to bring up is I started reading um it's called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Uh so this apparently was like pretty popular. It was written in 2013, but it apparently was really popular in the 2020s, like when COVID was happening. Yeah. Um it's called Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants. So it's like kind of talking about um plant ecology, but told from this point of view, like she is a botanist, but she's a Pottawaname uh Indian, and she's like telling these stories of plants, but also having like it's like she's telling like creation stories, she's telling like the how like the interconnectedness of like people and earth, and I was listening to it when I was driving over here, and it is there is sad stuff. I mean, obviously, like bad things have happened to like the Native American people in our country. So like there is sad stuff in it, but it's also like not really about that. It's sort of like educating you, but it's not like making you feel bad if you're like a white person. Like it's it's it's but it does, it does. Um I was like listening on the way over here and like crying about uh nuts. Like it was just it's just like talking about nuts and like the purpose of nuts and like how like nuts are for winter, and they're like because they're like so condensed and it has like a hearty everything that you need to survive is like in a nut. And like there are they are for like times where there's not enough to sustain you, like a nut. I'm just like I'm like, this is so beautiful, like nuts are amazing.
SPEAKER_02I wanna I wanna listen to it.
SPEAKER_00I think you'd like it. Um, but it is it it I think this is something a little bit closer to like okay, you're depressed. Here's something that's like gonna like meet you there and then help bring you out of it. Right. That's that's I think closer to what I needed.
SPEAKER_02So I like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so what a deep book series. Yeah, I know this week.
SPEAKER_00Um, so we read this week.
SPEAKER_02I read The Devil Takes You Home by Gambino. Sorry, Gabino Iglesias, which was written in 22.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Cool. Okay. And I read Demon Copperhead by Barbara King Solver. Mine was also written in 2022.
SPEAKER_02Look at us. Look at us.
SPEAKER_00Same wavelength. All right. Well, thanks for listening. Thank you. We'll try to be back in two weeks. We'll attempt two weeks. All right, bye. Bye.