My Best Friend's Exorcism

by Grady Hendrix

The devil is loud and brash and full of drama. God, he’s like a sparrow.”

I love Gretchen and Abby, but in my mind Brother Lemon is the hero of this book. In an earlier version, his death is what reconnects G&A after not speaking for 20 years, but even in the version you’re reading he’s the one who sacrifices himself for absolutely no personal gain. Yes, he cowards out when the going gets tough, but he repents and returns and takes the rap so that Abby doesn’t have her life ruined. When I was a kid, more than once an adult took a bullet and saved me from the exact same fate. One of them, Erica Lesesne, my high school English teacher, passed away recently and I regret that I was never able to convince her that she kept me from going down in flames. To her, she was just doing her job, but she saved me from getting expelled, and she kept me from ruining my own life, and it meant everything. We’ve all had those people in our lives, and Brother Lemon is that person for Abby. It’s a quiet kind of salvation, it doesn’t come with a swell of intense music or loud dramatics, but that’s how the things that save our lives happen sometimes. Why a sparrow? Fortunately or unfortunately, my Dolly Parton fandom keeps inserting itself, most notably in my 2018 novel, We Sold Our Souls, but also here. Her song, “Little Sparrow” is full of sadness and hope and yearning and tragedy, so…sparrows, they seem so small and helpless and fragile, but they’re resilient and can take whatever’s thrown at them. That’s the Gospel according to Dolly and I believe.