A review by alicroz34
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

dark reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

People love to believe in danger, as long as it's you in harm's way, and them saying bless your heart. 

We kids roamed wide, sometimes as far as the old coal camps with the little row houses like Monopoly, except not all alike anymore due to idle mischief and the various ways a roof can cave in. 

The microwave he'd bought her with the blue lit-up clock said 4:21. Nine minutes to go. I didn't want to be in that kitchen, and I didn't want to go back to the farm. I sat still, trying to be nothing and nowhere, watching my minutes tick out. 

And I'd have to go on living with what an asshole I'd been to her, especially at the end that I didn't know was the end. Last time I'd seen her at the house, did I even say goodbye, or let her hug me? I can't tell you. I've tried and will go on trying to see those last minutes again, pounding on them sometimes like it's the door of a damn bank vault, but if there's anything in there at all to be remembered, it's not coming to me. Access denied. 
Instead, I get to remember every single thing about the funeral. That day sits big and hard in my brain like this monster rock in the ocean, waiting to wreck me. I wish to God it would leave my brain. It stays. 

The people in the church looked like strangers. Some or most I'm sure I'd met before, but I wasn't seeing faces, just the rock-hard hearts. All of them thinking Mom brought this on herself, and was getting the last ride she deserved in that cheap white casket. A mean side to people comes out at such times, where their only concern is what did the misfortunate person do to put themselves in their sorry fix. They're building a wall to keep out the bad luck. I watched them do it. 

At the start of the service they did that song about Amazing God, and I felt exactly the opposite: I once could see but now I'm blind, was found but now I'm lost. 

It hit me pretty hard, how there's no kind of sad in this world that will stop it turning. People will keep on wanting what they want, and you're on your own.

... so this Mouse individual had to be from a galaxy far far away. Filly she said, which is a girl horse and made no sense until she clarified it was a town, Philadelphia. 

It's hard to explain how you can miss a place and want it with all your heart, and be utterly sure it will obliterate you the instant you touch down. 
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