My Best Friend's Exorcism

by Grady Hendrix

“I love you,” Abby shouted into the storm. “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 Halley’s Comet comes around again. I love you dearly and I love you queerly and no demon is bigger than this! I throw my pebble and its name is Gretchen Lang and in the name of our love, BEGONE!!!”

From the moment I started writing this book, I knew the ending would come when Abby stopped trying to exorcize Andras with other people’s faith, and embraced her own — a faith in friendship and a faith in she and Gretchen’s unshakable, unbreakable love. Once I had that, the rest was easy. I just had to write a book that delivered readers to this moment in a way that felt earned and not like a cheat. It turned out to be as easy as falling off a log, hitting a bunch of other logs on the way down, landing on a conveyor belt that took me through a gauntlet of stabby knives, dumped me into a wood chipper, shot my mutilated chunks into an incinerator, and then doused me with a shower of hydrochloric acid. Also, at some point my wife had to tell me my book sucked. Good times.