My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

A demon is easy to spot. The real horror is the smile you’re taught to trust. We crack open Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism to explore how an ’80s possession tale exposes the quieter monsters—purity panic, class snobbery, and adults who would rather protect reputation than protect a child. Peter and Elizabeth trade laughs and gut-punches as we revisit roller rinks, mixtapes, and that white-van “exorcist,” then follow the story into its darkest rooms where belief looks like denial and help arrives as spectacle.

Our conversation maps the book’s layered stakes: friendship versus performative faith, social sabotage disguised as concern, and the way institutions label girls as hysterical while ignoring harm in plain sight. We walk through the novel’s most searing turns—tapeworm diets as body-policing metaphor, forged love notes as a weapon against loneliness, and the slow rot of a house that mirrors parental neglect. Along the way, we ask who gets believed, who gets blamed, and why the most powerful exorcism in the book isn’t conducted with Latin but with loyalty.

Hendrix’s humor keeps the dread breathable, and we unpack how the comedy sharpens the critique rather than defanging it. The ending resists neat justice, and we sit with that discomfort: survival without vindication, truth without applause. For fans of horror with heart, social commentary, and ’80s nostalgia that actually interrogates the decade, this episode offers a thoughtful, unflinching guide.

Hit play, then tell us: was the demon the biggest villain, or did the adults win that title? If the show sparks something, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review—your notes help more readers find the conversation.

Transcript

Welcome To Lit On Fire

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Lit on Fire, the podcast where literature meets controversy, where banned books, silenced voices, and dangerous ideas refuse to stay quiet. From classrooms to courtrooms, novels to news cycles, we explore how stories challenge power, expose injustice, and ignite social change.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Our logo, a woman bound to top a burning stack of boats, isn't just an image, it's a warning. A warning about what happens when voices are raised, and a promise that stories once lit are impossible to put out.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

So if you're ready to question, to argue, to feel uncomfortable, and to think deeper, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I'm Peter Wetzel.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

And I'm Elizabeth Hahn.

Why This Novel Matters Now

First Impressions And Nostalgia

SPEAKER_01 0:41

And this is Lit on Fire. Welcome back. Today we're diving into Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism. On the surface, it's a nostalgic 1980s horror story about demonic possession and teenage friendship. But underneath the neon colors and mixtapes, the novel is asking much darker questions. Why are teenage girls so often labeled hysterical? What happens when society refuses to believe women about their own experiences? And who really gets called possessed? The victim or the girl who refuses to behave? Tonight we're talking about religion, patriarchy, panic culture, and the monstrous expectations placed on girls. So let's light it up. Liz, what is your take on this book?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Well, I know I say I love our books an awful lot. I really laughed out loud at the beginning of this one. I love how Grady Hendricks has this way of taking horror and couching it in comedy or comedic situations and then getting really serious with it and making it disturbing, but then still managing to bring in some of those laughs along the way. At the beginning, I felt myself reliving my childhood. There were so many references to things I remember from the 80s and then the early 90s, and there was this great friendship going on. I loved that aspect of it. It was a little bit like watching Stranger Things. So there were a lot of recognizable cultural things that I enjoyed. And then I loved that role into the scary, the buildup to that, and then ultimately the development of these characters and all the things we'll discuss. But I thought I maybe like this one better than I liked the Southern Book Club's guide to slaying vampires. I maybe put this one up a notch, even though I really loved that book as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

What about you? I agree with everything you said about the story and the novel. I'm, of course, a child of 1981. So by the time I was really clued into the world, the 80s were almost over. So um it's not as nostalgic for me. I can remember the roller rink and the music and that being a big thing. But of course, then it's about a teenage girl. So I liked it a lot, but I still still think I'll put Southern Book Club's guide to slaying vampires above it for me personally. One thing that always hits with Grady Hendricks is he has this way, and I think he's the only author that I've read this last year that I really feel this way about. He writes these characters that I want to jump through the pages and throttle to death. Every single time I've read, I've read three of his books now, he raises my blood pressure.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yes, I know. And this was one instance where I had finished the book before you, and you are texting me and saying, Oh my God, tell me this gets better because I'm about to die. This is stressing me out.

Plot Setup Without Spoilers

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah, I said I'm really tempted to just Google so that I can relax. I can Google what happens and I can just relax because I'm scared for my health. I mean, if any author is gonna cause me a heart attack in the middle of the book, it's gonna be Grady Hendrix. With all that being said, why don't you give us a brief synopsis of the story?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, and for the record, I'm only five years older, so it wasn't like I lived that much of the 80s, but I'm just gonna roll from there. The story is these two friends, Abby and Gretchen, and like Grady Hendricks did in the Southern Book Club's guide slaying vampires, we do cover some years in this book. And we start with Gretchen and Abby meeting when they're pretty young and then advancing in their friendship, becoming friends, the things they experience in school, and we get to the point of them being teenagers in high school, and then we have this moment that happens at a sleepover where something creepy happens with Gretchen, and then the creepiness kind of accelerates. And as the book is titled My Best Friend's Exorcism, you can infer from that point that there is a demonic possession and things kind of go from bad to worse, and a lot of really bad, creepy things happen throughout the book that ultimately lead to a climactic moment toward the end where we have to face this demonic force. And I am not going to offer spoilers at this part of the episode, so that'll leave it at that.

Character Deep Dive

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Let's compile this. So I guess I'll start with characters. I really loved Abby and Gretchen, and I felt like I really knew who they were as a character. Margaret and Glee were good characters, but of course they were kind of side friends. And then you've got Wallace, who's the jock jerk boyfriend, and then a couple other side characters. But really, Gretchen and Abby are where the story centers around. And I thought that they were really well developed. One of the criticisms that I have heard about this book that I kind of agree with, but that I'm a guy, like I said, so you could tell me is that for me, a lot of the times, Abby seemed just a little too ignorant and naive to be 16. There were times when I felt like she was 13 or 12 because she would just felt like she was so helpless, and I thought she was more helpless than a 16-year-old should be. However, I do say she's growing up in a conservative southern environment and they go to a Christian private school. So that is kind of how I rationalized that. But I wasn't quite sure if she was a believable 16-year-old to me.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

So can I ask you what would be one of those moments where you felt her to be incredibly naive without you getting into a spoiler?

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Give me time to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Okay, come back to that in just a second. I too liked Abby and Gretchen quite a bit. I like Abby as kind of our perspective. We're seeing things through. I think I like Abby because she is definitely from a lower class family living in an upper class world because this is an expensive private school and she's that girl on scholarship. So I like what we get with her character and her working girl perspective in comparison to a lot of the other characters. I love the relationship that's built between Abby and Gretchen. I think Margaret and Glee being kind of the side friends, they kind of become stereotypical stock characters like the rich girls, the rich conservative girl, the rich girl with the jock boyfriend. They still provide great contrast to what Abby and Gretchen are going through. So you get a lot of those bad girl, mean girl kind of scenarios going on in some of those characters, like the typical high school stuff. But I thought they were all developed in a way that really worked with the story. But Abby and Gretchen are really beautifully created characters or crafted characters for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

And if you want a specific example, I don't want to get a spoiler here, but I felt like just early on when things started to happen with Gretchen, Abby just seemed a little too ignorant of what was happening right in front of her face. I thought that there were many more warning signs, and she just didn't pick up on them. And I think she was like, Why are you being so mean? and stuff. There were just moments like that where I was like, okay, come on, girl.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

But she was taking too many things like a face value.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Your best friend is losing her marbles right in front of you, and she's crying out for help, and you're not doing anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yes, okay, and that's fair. I think though she's in a crisis response situation, and she's just she doesn't have a support system to handle that over and over and over again. She's the classic person that doesn't realize that the stove is hot, even though she's got like third-degree burns.

Atmosphere And The 1980s South

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Atmosphere-wise, well, it was the 80s. And I mean, I think he really pulled from his own experiences. I mean, he even ends the book with a list of his fellow yearbook, like the year 1988, that this is based in. He like lists the shout-outs from the seniors in his yearbook, including his own. I think he was just basically saying this was based on my high school experience, growing up in a conservative southern environment. So there were definitely statements made that wouldn't fly today. And I've seen some people say that they were offended by that in in reviews. I always laugh at that because it's like what you want to read a book about the South and you're not gonna hear the N-word, or read a book in the 80s, and you're not gonna have somebody say that's gay. You gotta be believable. This was real. We lived the experience. And that's what that's what telling a story is supposed to be true. It's supposed to really hold up to a mirror. And I really felt it did. I felt like it was everything about the 80s that I remembered. And also that descent into darker and darker and darker teenage angst and the issues that teenagers have, but he does it in this kind of spiritual warfare, supernatural sort of way.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yes, he does. And I think it works, and I agree with the atmosphere. I think it's a great depiction of Gen X parenting and Gen X life. And I think that the life in the 80s raised on hose, water, and neglect, even though these are upper class kids and certainly they've got more resources, with the exception of Abby. She definitely fits with that hose, water, and neglect kind of ideal. You have these kids off doing these things and having these struggles. And these parents are pretty oblivious to what's going on with their kids until they swoop in at all the wrong moments or with all the totally out of touch things that are going on. So I think he did a great job of capturing this conservative southern upper class, completely out of touch, culturally insensitive, racist, classist, sexist. Life in the 80s in the South.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And another thing that really stood out to me was even to this day, the reputation of families has a lot of pull. Not everybody gets justice if they don't have the right kind of family background. They don't come from the right side of the tracks.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, and I'm not going to mention any names, but I live in a small town where the same last name is on many of the buildings throughout the town, right? And my daughter says, Oh, wait, there are kids in my class that had that last name, and they're the ones that all the teachers seem to like, and they're the ones wearing the nicest clothes, and they're the ones, you know, who seem to get a lot of the attention. Are they related to the people that own those buildings? Yes, dear.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

And don't piss them off.

Writing Style And Humor In Horror

SPEAKER_00 10:26

They're related to the people that own the buildings. So, yes, that is still a very big deal. All right, moving on. So we've got the writing style. I love his writing style. I find the dialogue great. I find the humor to be a relief in the midst of all the dark things that are going on. So I think it's the perfect blend. I'm not necessarily a horror story person. I do like Stephen King, but I don't necessarily pick that up as my genre of preference. But I think I would read his books over and over again because it's just the right blend for me. And I love the satire that is really worked into this as you're dealing with that comedy and that drama and that horror all mixed in. So I am 100% down for a Grady Hendricks book. I love the writing style.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah. The only thing I'm gonna add to that is if you want to read a book with characters that are gonna piss you the hell off, then that is his writing style.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

So be prepared to want to kill people as people are being killed.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Plot, I like I said already, it's supernatural, but it's also so much deeper. It's got a lot of symbolism, it works on so many levels. You know, at first I was trying to interpret it what was going on without the supernatural element. Yeah. That's not Grady Hendrix. He's pretty straightforward about what his horror book's gonna be about. He doesn't have a lot of twists. When he says my best friend's exorcism, he means my best friend's exorcism.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

When he says the Southern Book Cups lied to slaying vampires, he means there's gonna be a vampire. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Don't read too much into it in the beginning, but you can also learn a lot of lessons about teenage struggles as you read it, even though it is a fanciful horror story.

Plot Layers And Symbolism

SPEAKER_00 11:54

There's intrigue on so many levels in this book. I mean, and that's where the layers upon layers come into a Grady Hendricks novel for me, because clearly there is the intrigue and the stress and the and the tension building with the possession and the exorcism itself. So just the nature of possession is going to be that slow roll into the really dangerous, dark area that always we get to in a possession story. But the other thing, the other intrigue going on in this is the social intrigue and the horrible tension of these hateful people that are in this private school and this manipulation and the prejudice against people from the wrong side of the tracks, and the blame and the religious paranoia, and we could just go over and the repute the need to have this reputation. There's so much going on. So the intrigue builds on multiple levels.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Logic, the story relies mostly on symbolism and emotional responses and the experiences. Now, I guess the question is okay, does everybody act logically? For the most part, yes. There's a lot of different reactions to what happens, and each and every reaction I can think of is represented except for the helpful one.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

For most of the book. There's some logic there, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Right. Except for Abby, when she doesn't do the thing we know she should do like 10 different times, you know, and we want her to push her in the right direction. So there are frustrating things, but let's face it, nine times out of ten, human beings make illogical choices. So what's represented is logical because it is the action of fallible humans. Enjoyment. Unless you're Peter and you're wanting to kill people in the book because they're making you so flipping angry that you're ready to, you know, call and scream on the other end of the phone that you can't stand them, then you are going to enjoy the book. No, seriously, though, there are gonna be things that drive you crazy, but being that invested just means you're that invested. I was driven to keep coming back to the book and reading. My family was like, we're being orphaned by the book. I was reading this instead of listening to it. So I was wanting to pick up the book and have my nose in it all the time. Like, excuse me, I'm gonna go back to reading my book here, and I couldn't get myself away from it.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

And you're absolutely right. Even though it invokes all the strong emotions, I did absolutely enjoy it and I blasted through it. I will say this satisfaction-wise, I I'm gonna change the word enjoyment to satisfaction. It did not satisfy me completely in the end because there is not a ton of justice. It's definitely a decent ending, but I would have loved for everything to work out much more neatly. It's not that kind of story.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Well, and if it worked out much more neatly, it would not be believable. There was no way in this culture, in this time, even today, that situation was gonna wrap up in a way that you or I would have liked.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I agree.

Enjoyment Vs Satisfaction

SPEAKER_00 14:55

But all in all, this is an amazingly crafted book. There is one little point I will talk about in the spoiler section that drove me a little crazy. But I would recommend this to anyone to read this because I think this is just great. All right, so this is the point where we are gonna transition to spoilers, spoilers all the way. So if you want to turn this podcast off, read this amazing book, and then come back and listen to this next part, then go ahead and do that because we are gonna spoil the book.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

So for those of you who are still here for the spoilers, I feel like the one that I need to give you up front is the most important trigger warning from this book, the dog does die. So you can prepare yourself now, the dog does die. And that was my least favorite part of this book. I was so devastated.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Me too. I I almost threw the book down at that point. So if you are a dog lover and you need to know those things before you watch a movie or anything else, you will painfully visualize that moment and it will make you very, very sad. So definitely know that that happens. All right, and on that note, we are gonna go through a series of debate statements again. We're gonna do three and really talk through the book using those. The first statement is stories about demonic possession often function as metaphors for controlling female behavior. And I think this is an important one because we do have this centered on these two girls, Abby Rivers and Gretchen Lang. And one of the things that I noticed right away is how Grady Hendricks sets up their two backgrounds. Gretchen Lange's parents are very, very religious. And when they first meet, poor Abby has set up this birthday party at the skating rink, and she has learned to skate beautifully, and she was going to impress all of her friends. And then Margaret invites all the kids to go horseback riding at her house.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

This is 1982, so I think she's 10, right? Yes, it's her 10th birthday.

Spoiler Wall And Trigger Warnings

Possession As Control Of Girls

SPEAKER_00 16:57

And Abby doesn't have anything fancy, so getting a birthday party at the skating rink is about the best she can do. And so she's learned how to skate, and no one shows up. She's got the room decorated, but the new girl, Gretchen, shows up. They drop her off, she brings a gift, and it's a Bible. And Abby is like, I hate you. Why are you here? I hate this gift, I hate my life. None of the people I wanted to show up showed up. So it's not an auspicious beginning for their friendship. And then they end up in the bathroom together because Abby goes there to cry her eyes out at the skating rink, and Gretchen goes in and says, I didn't want to give you a Bible, and they end up on the skating rink together, and Abby teaches Gretchen how to skate. And it kind of moves forward from there. But the reason I think this dynamic works so well for this idea of controlling female behavior is Gretchen's parents work really hard to control her and everything she does from the very beginning of the book. Everything she does has to be pure and Christian. She is very restricted on anything she can see, anything she has access to. Abby is a very questionable friend on many levels. So they let Abby come over under their roof, but they're kind of always controlling that interaction as well. Gretchen, I guess you would say, is very prone to control. And then when the possession takes place and Gretchen is the victim of that, it just to me amplifies that control that Gretchen has been under. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah, I agree. I kind of took it this way: the people that I have seen grow up in the most restrictive households are the ones that lose their shit the fastest. Right. They're the ones that go through the worst rebellion phase because it's human nature. This lifelong suppression of your basic human nature will not pay off in the end. Right. They and when they try something that's addictive, they get addicted. When they do something that's rebellious, they go all in because you've made it so taboo. What's to lose? And so I think symbolically have we have a kind of representation of that in what goes on with Gretchen.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Right. And one of the things that happens with her is that when the demon begins to persecute her, he begins to essentially sexually assault her at night and do things to her. It starts with this persistent touching from invisible hands, and she can't stop it. And then at night when she's trying to sleep, it's the sitting on the chest, and then the sexual manipulation and the sexual treatment, even when she is technically asleep. And so there are these noises that are coming from the bedroom. And her parents instantly think she's sneaking someone into the house or something of that nature. And their first inclination, instead of as they're watching their daughter decline in these horrible ways visually, and their her lack of sleep and the illness that seems to be taking hold of her, their first concern is to drag her to a gynecologist and have that person painfully check to see if she's a virgin, because that is what's most concerning to them. And so this possession meets in tandem with her parents' kind of psychotic control and that cultural fear of female sexuality, the control of both the demon on her physical person, and then her parents on her physical person, it becomes like this dual violation that takes place.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Consistently throughout this book, what I noticed was that her parents' knee-jerk reaction to everything that their daughter goes through is to increasingly avoid her and therefore neglect her because they're most worried about how she makes them look in public. And so they do nothing to really help her. They just kind of turn a blind eye.

Adults Who Refuse To Listen

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Right. And they assume the blame should be placed on the friend that's not from the right family. So suddenly Abby becomes the target of their ired because Abby is from a family where the father really drinks and doesn't work, and the mother's working around the clock, so no one's really supervising her. No matter that she works a job consistently and she has stray A's at school and she's never been anything but a great friend, she's the one that drives Gretchen to school every morning when her parents don't. Yet Abby is automatically cast into suspicion because she must be the one guilty of dragging Gretchen down in some way to come to the point where they actually think she's exposing Gretchen to drugs.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Right. Well, I mean, their first assumption, of course, is that Gretchen is having um a hysterical reaction to puberty. That it's it's mental health related, but not in the you need. Mental health, you need to speak to your pastor.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

And that's what they that's the as far as they'll go for her. But when Gretchen tells Abby about the sexual things that are happening, Abby assumes somebody has raped her. She doesn't understand that it's a supernatural thing yet. So she decides to go to Gretchen's parents and tell say You have to help her.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

So she's been raped.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

And they consider that to be an absolutely horrific accusation. How dare you suggest something like that could happen to our daughter, as if it would be her fault if it did.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Right. And that is just infuriating to me. And that's one of the points where you just want to strangle her parents because their response is so awful. And that's when they reject Abby entirely.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Because she makes the mistake of telling them the truth.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Because she's honest and she actually thinks these adults are going to help her. And that's where she keeps this kind of insane thing going over and over and over again is she keeps going to adults in this world thinking she's going to get help and then meeting the same response over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

And we haven't really said this yet, but the truth is that they did try LSD once to experiment at a slumber party. And the only one that was affected by it ended up being Gretchen. And she goes and strips herself naked and she goes off and they lose her in the woods for the entire night. They don't find her until morning.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

And that's when the possession takes place.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

And that's when she starts behaving differently. And she has a really bad reaction to the LSD. So Abby's first assumption is that night somebody raped her and he's coming to do it again and again, or she's having flashbacks to the rape. And my first initial reaction to this, because I was trying to see it from a non-supernatural angle, was I know that LSD can trigger schizophrenia.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Which is what I thought maybe might be going on. But then my reaction to my child would be to take them to an actual doctor.

Mental Health, Religion, And Denial

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Right, but mental health is not a thing in the 80s. Therapy, self-care, mental health, like, okay, hose water and neglect people. My parents weren't gonna check me in to a therapist and have me go to therap therapy. My parents certainly would have me go talk to the pastor. The pastor was my dad. So that wouldn't have helped me any either. But the standard prescription would have been are you baptized? Have you been going to church? You need to pray more. Have you been reading your Bible? You don't go see a therapist. This is 1988. This is not 2020, 2026. You don't take your child to a therapist. That's not what happens. But that's not what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

But to this day, I'm afraid mental health is treated more as spiritual warfare in hyper-religious families still.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Correct. It really is. And I think that's where the discussion of this religion aspect comes into play. And that really comes up later, but we're gonna hold on that for just a second. So we've already crossed into the second statement I was gonna hit on, which is the real horror in the novel is not the demon, it's the adults who refuse to listen. And that really is one of the greatest takeaways in this. The demon is clearly awful. I would ask, you know, what is the demon really? It is a demon in this story, but symbolically, what else does it represent? So I want to answer that question in a second. But the adults really are the worst part for me. So many times, all the adults, from the headmaster at the school to the priest at the school, to the parents on both sides. There are a couple times where Abby's mother starts to stand up for Abby having experienced similar things when she went to that school. There are things where she steps up and she tries to do things for her daughter, but then she turns right back around and she blames her daughter for everything, like after she stands up for her. So it's kind of this back and forth thing between her and Abby. And the dysfunction there, the family dysfunction, the societal dysfunction, the absolute lack of care is just so astonishing that it left me angry.

The Rotten House And Isolation

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Yeah, the the demon is overtly evil and does evil things.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

But the culture, the attitude of the adults is insidious.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Because the adults portray themselves as good.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

The demon never pretends to be good. The demon wants to kill people.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

And emotionally I can deal with that better.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Because there's an injustice in what goes on with the adults.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

And it's the injustice that sticks in your craw and you know makes you not want to put up with that at all.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Exactly. And as far as what's really going on here with the demon possession, I mean, like you said in the book, it's a demon. It's a demon. But I do think it does represent a mental health struggle and other things, depression and just a reaction to her upbringing and things like that as well. It's all combined for a perfect storm of a mental break. But we even see it kind of coming on before the actual opportunity, which I guess is the LSD for the demon to possess her. She is grows up feeling so angry at her parents that she tells Abby many times, I know where my dad's gun is, and one day I'm gonna kill my parents. And Abby's like, You don't mean that. She goes, Yes, I do. And she says that, and that scared me.

Exorcists, Spectacle, And Failure

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yeah, it scared me too. And it leads me to think at one point that her parents are actually dead, and there's an illusion making us think they're still alive. Because, well, this is the point where I think it's a major plot hole. Because when Abby goes over to the house multiple times trying to help Gretchen, when she walks in, every time she's in the house, it smells like rotting meat and it smells like rot. And she goes, and everything in the refrigerator is rotten. And I told Peter, okay, that doesn't make any sense. Like, unless her parents are actually dead, how are these uppity people living in a house with nothing but rotten food in the refrigerator? And I'm like, that would not be happening. Like the only thing in there is diet coke that anyone can eat or drink, but everything else is rotten. Like these people aren't going to have left rotten food in the refrigerator. So I really thought they were dead. And then they're not.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

And so I understand I agree with you on the level that we are left to infer why that is. But I do think there is a logical reason because it starts small. It starts with them avoiding going into Gretchen's bedroom, which the mom goes in twice a day or something like that to clean the room and to look for contraband.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

And then suddenly when Gretchen starts going through this, the room is nasty, it's stinky, it's never getting clean. And Abby's like, why has she stopped cleaning the room? And then as her demon possession worsens, I think that aura of stay away from me and that power to push them away and kind of give them a mental blindness to their surrounding, to their, to what's happening, because it's to represent the fact that they're avoiding what's happening. They're avoiding her, they're avoiding what's happening, and that goes so far in a supernatural way for them to even stay out of the house so much they don't even know all the food in their house is rotten. So I think by the end, she's living alone essentially because they're staying away from her, and that's what the demon is making them do that. Okay. That was my interpretation of that.

Teen Cruelties And Social Sabotage

SPEAKER_00 29:02

All right, and I can I can roll with that because they can't be living in that house if all that food is rotting in that house. They just have to have left her completely alone. This is my favorite statement, I think. Female friendship is portrayed as more powerful than institutional religion. And this is where I'll get to the religious concept in this, and this is where I'll talk about the symbolism that you kind of already got to with the demonic possession. Obviously, we know what an exorcism is. And in this kind of semi-funny, kind of horrifically painful moment in the book, we have these Christian evangelists come to the school and they are bodybuilders. They're like a bunch of brothers who do bodybuilding and they like smash things for Jesus in the name of the Lord. See, I crush this cinder block, and they're like bouncing around on the stage and talking about God has given me this power, and they're probably on steroids and they've got big muscles, but they like lift things and break things, and they're doing everything in the name of the Lord, and it's this whole routine, and they say some things that are highly questionable. But that being said, at one point, the youngest brother, whose name is appropriately Christian, looks out in the audience and looks straight at Gretchen, who is fully possessed at this point, and says, I see the demon possessing you. And Abby looks at Christian and goes, He sees a demon possessing her. And at this point, Abby has started to think, yeah, I'm in over my head. I have no idea what's going on with my friend. And so she talks to Christian afterwards and he says, Yes, I saw a demon possessing her, and it's in this form. And it rings true for Abby because of the things that she's seen. And so that is the person she enlists to help her with the exorcism. And he says, Oh, yeah, I can do it. You know, in the name of Christ, we can exercise this demon. And she's like, Have you ever done this before? Do you know? I've watched my dad do it, but I've got what I need. I'm a soldier for God. I've helped. I've helped. I've helped. And so he says, What we need to do is we need to drug her and we need to get her someplace alone.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

It looks really bad. And he's got a white van and everything.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

He's got a white van and he's got this bag full of like handcuffs and you know and rope. And he says, We need to take your friend and we're gonna, you know, tie her down and we're gonna exercise.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

And at least Abby is smart enough at this point to go, oh hell no, he's a murder hobo. And she doesn't enlist him at that point, but things get so bad that eventually she's desperate and she does go back to him.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Right, because Demon Gretchen, who now it's not even Gretchen anymore, it is full the demon, starts sabotaging Abby, and everyone is turned against Abby. And Abby's like basically on the verge of being arrested. So she gets so desperate that she enlists this quote-unquote exorcist.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

And not just Abby, she also almost gets Margaret and Glee killed.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yes.

Friendship As The Real Exorcism

SPEAKER_01 31:56

And here's where more symbolism goes as far as the teenage struggle goes. She manages to get Margaret so obsessed with losing weight, she gets her to almost die of weight loss. But it's because she slipped her a tapeworm in a shape that she's been giving her.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Lots of tapeworms.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Right. But then it's also pointed out that that was a diet fad and still is today, actually. That people do take tapeworms, but in this case it's given to her by a demon. But I think it also represents the female struggle with weight loss. Right, bodyum and then the friend Glee, she manages to convince that their school priest is sending her love letters. She's forging love letters, and then when she goes to him to be with him, he's like, I don't know what you're talking about, and she nearly commits suicide. So there are all these different struggles that appear in the book. Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

That are very real. Right. And so there's terrible stuff happening. So she finally goes to Exorcist Christian and she drugs Gretchen and they wrap her up in a rug or something and a blanket, and they drag her out to the beach house that the Langs own, that her family owns, and they tie her to a bed, and he starts this exorcism process with the demon. Well, he's in over his head. And the demon named Andris just womps this guy. I mean, he starts just playing with Christian because Christian is absolutely incapable, and he is saying, and Christian is saying the Lord's Prayer, and he is saying all the things that any good exorcist would say. And then finally, I mean, he is about to kill Gretchen because he's so determined to mortify the flesh to get this demon out. And it's like a pissing contest between the demon and Christian at this point. And it's all this, if we can say, dick measuring male bravado is going on that at one point he boils water and gets a funnel, and he's about to pour boiling water down Gretchen's throat in order to get to the demon. And Abby's like, whoa, stop. What are you doing? And she starts like slapping things out of his hand. You're gonna kill my friend. And then Christian like comes to and he realizes, oh my God, what am I doing? And then he runs away and he leaves Abby there alone. He's like, I have to go get my daddy, but he never comes back and he leaves Abby alone. So this is the point where Abby has to face up, what am I gonna do? So Abby tries to continue the regular exorcism.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Yeah, and the demon says something very interesting. You guys, he says this about Christian too, but he says, You guys are so funny uh spouting words that you don't even believe. Right. You think that's gonna have power over me, and Abby doesn't know what else to do, so she just continues to try for hours and hours and hours to use the same method that Christian was using. I think it goes back to an earlier comment that Christian makes that I really latched onto. He says, Demons are just ideas personified.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

And to a degree, the truth is that's that's also faith. If you believe in it enough, it manifests itself, but if you don't, it won't. Right. And so that's one of the issues at play here.

Cost Of Survival And Aftermath

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Right. And so she says, she says all the things. The power of Christ compels you, Andres. Leave this girl alone. I command you, unclean spirit. The power of Christ commands you, the power of Christ commands you. And she loses. Like she loses, and she's gonna be possessed. Andres starts to take her over, Gretchen's gonna be completely possessed, they're both going to die. And then in the final moments, Abby starts saying, We've got the beat, we got the beat, we got the beat. And then suddenly, by the power of Phil Collins, I rebuke you. By the power of Phil Collins, who knows that you coming back to me against all odds. In his name I command you to leave this servant of Genesis alone, by the power of the thornbirds, by the sacred strength of my sweet Audreena, and forever, I deny and rebuke you, Andras, by the power of lost retainers and Jamaica, and had cornrows and four fireflies and Madonna by all the things I rebuke you. And then she says, By the power of my love, she says, I love you. I love you, Gretchen Lang. You are my reflection and my shadow, and I will not let you go. We are bound together forever and ever until Haley's comic comes around again. I love you dearly and I love you queerly, and no demon is bigger than this. And then she wins.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Because that was her true faith.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

It was friendship, it was their friendship. Yes. It was what gave her the power. And I thought that was so good.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

It was so good. We can we can sit here and cry now. And it was their friendship that saves both of them in that moment, and it was not by the power of Christ at all. And I thought that sorry to offend you all.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

That's just what the book is, though.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

That is what the book is. It was that female friendship, it was that lifelong female friendship that saves them. And so, yes, Gretchen is saved. Their friendship is saved, but it's not perfect. Bad things still happen, and life is imperfect.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Yeah, the there's no way they can explain all of this. It makes both of them look very, very bad.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Right.

Next Read And Support

SPEAKER_01 36:59

And I mean, Abby literally almost goes to jail. And so it's just a really frustrating ending in that regard. Right. Love the fact that they are friends and that's they're saved and they're lifelong friends to the very, very end. But they will always be the only two that know the truth of what really happened. Right. And that is sad.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

And it says at the end of the book Abby Rivers and Gretchen Lang were best friends on and off for 75 years. And there aren't many people who can say that. They weren't perfect, they didn't always get along. They screwed up, they acted like assholes, they fought, they fell out, they patched things up, they drove each other crazy, and they didn't make it to Haley's comment, but they tried. And I think that's a beautiful picture of what it is to live as humans and what it is to be friends and sisters and brothers and all the things that we are to each other in true relationship. And that's what made it such a beautiful story. So, yes, there are moments when this is frustrating beyond belief, but there are so many great things to digest in the story and so many beautiful moments at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

So, Liz, your turn. What are we gonna read next?

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Well, every once in a while we have to throw in a bit of a classic. So this next time we are going to read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. And you know a little bit about that one. Oh, just a little bit. So I'm really excited to talk about it. If you are enjoying our podcast and feel moved to support us in some small way, you can find a support link on our bus sprout account and in the link tree on our social media.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Your support will go towards covering our production costs and improvements in our production quality. We appreciate you. And as always, keep reading.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Keep thinking, and we'll see you next time.