Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

This is what I would say if I could, to all smart people of the world with their dumb hillbilly jokes: We are right here in the stall. We can actually hear you.

“Certain pitiful souls around here see whiteness as their last asset that hasn’t been totaled or repossessed.”

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.

To be here was to be known. If Lee County isn’t that, it’s nothing.