My Best Friend's Exorcism

“Mostly, for six years, they stayed in Gretchen’s room. They made endless lists; their best friends, their okay friends, their worst enemies, the best teachers and the meanest teachers, which teachers should get married to each other, which school bathroom was their favorite, where they would be living in six years, in six months, in six weeks, where they’d live when they were married, how many babies their cats would have together, what their wedding colors would be.”

The novel challenges the idea of blood ties through the complexity of friendship. Here, Abby and Gretchen fantasize about the future, but the focus is not on spouses and children, but their continued friendship—the things that brought them together and will continue to do so.

“‘You’re selfish. I’m the fun one, and you’re the mean one.’

They were always trying to figure out which one of them was which. Recently, Abby had been designated the fun one and Gretchen the beautiful one. Neither of them had ever been the mean one before.”

This quote complicates the complexity of friendship and The Mercurial and Relational Nature of Identity. Abby and Gretchen are such close friends that their identities tend to bleed together, so it’s not always clear where one of them “ends” and the other “begins.”

“Abby was beginning to feel like everything was too much. She was beginning to feel like nothing she did made any difference. She was beginning to feel like her family was sliding down a hill and they were dragging her down after them and at the bottom of that hill was a cliff. […]

She didn’t have to be poor. She could get a job. She didn’t have to help Glee. But she could. Life could be an endless series of joyless chores, or she could get totally pumped and make it fun.”

This quote illustrates how Abby experiences The Challenges of Adolescence differently from her friends, due to her family’s socioeconomic status. She lacks the financial resources that her friends enjoy, which also means she lacks some freedom and margins of error: She literally can’t afford the same mistakes.

“She pulled up in front of her sad, sagging house, with its broken spine and huffing window-unit air conditioners and the army of busted lawn mowers sprouting from the weeds, which were the only things growing in their yard. […]

When Abby entered Gretchen’s house, it was like opening the pressurized airlock of a gleaming spaceship and walking into a sterile environment. When she entered her own house, it was like forcing open the waterlogged door of a hillbilly’s shack and walking into a moldy cave.”

To combat the drawbacks of being working class, Abby fantasizes about living in Gretchen’s house and pretends her bedroom is a separate house. She believes she can transcend her socioeconomic class by changing her perspective on life, but as she learns later in the novel, getting a job at the TCBY frozen yogurt shop won’t improve her relationship with her family or grant her the same level of wealth as her friends.

“‘Some things that are broken cannot be fixed,’ Coach Greene said. ‘Sometimes it only takes one mistake to ruin what cannot be repaired, be it your reputation, your family’s good name, or your…most…valuable…gift.’ […]

‘Am I boring you, Miss Lang? Because I can repeat this in Saturday School if you’d prefer. Or maybe you can hear it again when you’re crying in my office after you’ve thrown your treasure in the gutter and shamed yourself, your family, and your school. Would you like that?’”

This quote illustrates the depth of misogyny and victim blaming ingrained in 1980s Charleston culture. Coach Greene frames rape as a survivor’s fault, and because of this communal mentality, Gretchen’s parents keep Gretchen’s violation by the demon Andras quiet, which exacerbates the possession.

“The house vibrated as birds dove into upstairs windows, the skylight, the side windows—one after the other without pause. It sounded as though invisible hands were knocking all over the house, saying, ‘Let me in, let me in.’ […]

Two owls swooped out of the darkness and landed among the stunned and dying birds, their talons digging into soft bodies.”

Andras is associated with owls—predatory birds—and sometimes depicted as an owl-man. Here, the owls behave much like he does, feasting upon discord and violence. Thus begins Gretchen’s full possession, having been isolated by fear and outside interference (Andras).

“‘They told me you wouldn’t understand,’ she said.

And that was the moment Gretchen started to pull away, and there wasn’t a thing Abby could do to stop her.”

One small moment causes Gretchen to pull away, like the moment that sparked her and Abby’s friendship in the first place. Throughout the novel, characters repeatedly accuse each other of not understanding, which highlights Andras’s method of isolation.

“‘Charleston people like the Langs, they only want easy times. The minute it rains, watch them run.’ […]

‘Good God, Abby. Where do you think I grew up? I understand these people better than you.’”

Abby repeatedly accuses her mother of not understanding her friends or life, as if her mother had not experienced her issues as a teenager. Although it takes a while, Abby and her mother eventually end their “war,” and she accepts her mother’s advice as well-meaning.

“Abby really looked at Gretchen, trying to see who was there, not just who had always been there before. […]

Someone had to do something. Someone had to say something. Teachers weren’t doing it. Her mom wasn’t going to do it. The Langs wouldn’t do it. That left Abby.”

Possession is often associated with physical changes, including a lack of hygiene. The focus on Abby's and Gretchen’s skin (i.e., their acne) reinforces Andras’s influence and other adolescent problems. The demon shows itself through symptoms that could be dismissed as having other causes, which breeds further distrust from adults and peers.

“‘I don’t know who you are anymore!’

‘I’m me,’ Gretchen said. ‘Am I? Maybe I’m someone else. No, I’m still me; it hasn’t happened yet, it can’t have happened yet. I’m still me, I’m still myself. You have to believe I’m still me.’”

As Andras increases his hold on Gretchen, Abby starts to feel like Gretchen has “become” a different person. Even though the demon is real in the novel, its presence still complicates the mercurial and relational nature of identity by showing how quickly Gretchen changes and influences those around her due to the possession.

“‘Abby, what has Gretchen said to you?’ Mr. Lang asked. Then, like a typical adult, he didn’t wait for her answer. ‘What Gretchen is going through is very scary, and I don’t blame you for backing off from your friendship a little. But we’ve talked to doctors and they tell us that what’s happening is an unfortunate sickness of the mind and spirit that happens sometimes as girls grow up.’ […]

Instantly, Abby was furious. How dare they act like they knew what was going on? They didn’t know a thing.

‘She was raped,’ Abby said. […]

‘You can’t toss around those accusations,’ Mr. Lang said. ‘You have no idea what’s going on here. You’re a child.’”

The Langs are unwilling to accept that Gretchen not only is possessed but was raped, even though rape is a prevalent, realistic issue. This is indicative of Charleston’s level of misogyny and victim blaming, which would lead to Gretchen being blamed and ridiculed instead of helped. The Langs’ claim that Abby can’t understand Gretchen’s problems because she is a child is ironic, because Abby is the only person who does understand Gretchen’s problem.

“There was Dr. Gillespie, a marriage counselor for half the divorced couples in Charleston. Last year he was found tied to one of his office chairs, dressed in women’s clothing, beaten to death with a Pre-Columbian statue from his collection. […]

Turning eighteen doesn’t determine when you become an adult in Charleston; neither does registering to vote, graduating from high school, or getting your driver’s license. In Charleston, the day you become an adult is the day you learn to ignore your neighbor’s drunk driving and focus on whether he submitted a paint-color change proposal to the Board of Architectural Review. The day you become an adult is the day you learn that in Charleston, the worse something is, the less attention it receives.”

This quote summarizes Abby’s main challenge: The adults around her are so concerned with reputation that they tend to ignore problems. Possession may sound ridiculous, but it’s equally ridiculous to believe problems will disappear if they’re ignored. Although ignoring problems may be an “adult” tendency, it’s not a marker of true maturity—with Abby and Christian being the only people who care about Gretchen.

“They’re…metaphors. Ways of dealing with information and emotions. Adolescence is a complicated time, and some really bright people think that when the adult emerges, it’s like you’re being taken over by a different person. Almost like being possessed. Sometimes parents, or friends, get hurt when a loved one changes. They look around for something to blame. Music, movies, satanism.”

Although Father Morgan’s words are useless to Abby, who is seeking help with real possession, they clarify the symbolic framing of possession. To him, possession symbolizes the mercurial and relational nature of identity, especially concerning adolescence and its rapid changes. Both permanent and temporary changes can occur during adolescence, making it harder to decipher someone’s true identity.

“Bright splashes of color marked birthdays, school letting out early, volleyball games. Then the schedule stopped, the colors disappeared, and the next page was packed with cramped handwriting from top to bottom, curling back up the side, a tiny crazy monologue. […]

Near the back, Abby found the pages that would get Gretchen a one-way ticket to Southern Pines if anyone ever saw them. The pages that read: Kill them all. I want to die. Kill me. Make it stop make it stop make it stop.”

The changes in Gretchen’s notebook reflect the changes in her personality after Andras’s attack. Whereas before, she was “colorful,” friendly, and full of life, she has since become disturbed. The two “sides” of Gretchen compete until Andras pushes her out of her own body (and notebook).

“‘I’m sure I can’t possibly understand anything about your wonderful friends,’ Mrs. Rivers said. ‘I warned you those girls would take you down this path, and you thought I couldn’t possibly understand anything about your life. Oh, no, you’re too smart for me. So you ignored everything I said and here we are. Well, I hope you feel clever now.’”

Abby’s mother calls out her frequent dismissal of her advice. She may not know Gretchen as well as Abby does, but she understands how Charleston works. This is not to say that Abby should have given up on Gretchen, but her mother’s warning was not meaningless: Like she predicted, the Langs blame Abby for Gretchen’s current state.

“This demon wants to isolate you. It wants to drive everyone else away. Then, when the time comes, it’ll make the demoniac wipe herself out and take you with it. You won’t have anyone left to help you when that hour is upon thee. […]

Demons are ideas made flesh…Bad ideas. The one inside your friend is discord, anger, and rage. He is the bringer of storms with a smile like lighting, brother of owls and giver of nightborn intelligence.”

All possession is dangerous, but Andras is particularly threatening for Abby and Gretchen because of his interest in sowing discord and turning people against each other. He is an appropriate demon to develop The Complexity of Friendship because, in order to save Gretchen, Abby has to stick by her despite Andras’s efforts to drive her away.

“Old Charleston houses were everything you didn’t want in a coastal home: they were big, they were uninsulated, and they were made of wood. They cost a fortune to maintain, but if you owned one you cared more about living south of Broad than you did about money. […] Every downtown house’s exterior looked exactly the same: neatly painted white columns, shining coats of fresh paint on the exterior walls, glossy black shutters pinned back from the windows, scrolled wrought-iron fences and gates enclosing microscopic front yards. But every interior, hidden from public view, was its own secret study in decay.”

This quote highlights the difference between how houses appear in public and how they appear in private: Everyone has problems, but in Charleston, it’s conventional to conceal them from the public. This mirrors a fully possessed Gretchen’s façade of normalcy when in reality, she’s suffering worse than before.

“She ripped down her E.T. poster, yanking the brittle paper off the wall and pulling it to pieces; then she took Tommy Cox’s Coke and pegged it into the corner. She clawed the photos out from around her mirror, shredding Gretchen’s face and her face, screaming profanities as she reduced their years together to glossy confetti on the floor. […]

She felt sick because she knew what she was doing was wrong, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was tired of being stupid, she was tired of Gretchen laughing at her, she was tired of losing. She was so tired.”

Both adults and Andras try to belittle Abby by reminding her that she’s a child. This makes her want to expedite her maturation so she can become capable of difficult tasks such as exorcism. However, like many adults in the novel, her first act as an “adult” is not mature: Destroying her posters and stuffed animals solves nothing, instead leaving her more depressed than before.

“Abby backed away from him, stumbled down the hall, and locked herself in her bedroom. She had forgotten she’d destroyed it and wasn’t prepared for the wreckage.”

Despite Abby’s protest, her parents believe she stole the fetus from the anatomy lab. She retreats to the sanctuary of her bedroom, only to remember she destroyed it to stop “being a child.” Denying oneself a safe space does not make one an adult. On the contrary, having a safe space can give one the strength to make mature decisions.

“The exorcist must be willing to lose everything—all dignity, all safety, all illusions—everything is burned away in the fire of the exorcism, and what’s left is the core of who you are. It’s like lifting—when…you’ve got nothing left to give. And in that darkest moment you cry out, ‘Lord, I can’t!’ and a voice comes out of the darkness and says, ‘But I can.’ […] That’s God talking. And he says, ‘You are not alone,’ and enfolds you in the wings of the eagle, and he carries you up. But first you have to burn away everything that doesn’t matter.”

Like Abby’s mother, Christian Lemon (or Brother Lemon) gives Abby partially useful advice: With Christian’s words, she figures out how to perform Gretchen’s exorcism herself. Abby isn’t religious, so Christian’s traditional approach doesn’t work for her—especially his insistence that she cast off her family, friends, and 1980s popular culture. These things are “core” to Abby and Gretchen’s friendship and directly lead to the exorcism’s success.

“I love you, Abby. You’re my best friend, and my mirror, and my reflection, and you are me, and you are everything I love and everything I hate, and I will never give up on you.”

Like Important Quote #3, this quote complicates the mercurial and relational nature of identity. In the face of others’ twisted view of romantic and sexual love, Abby and Gretchen’s platonic love proves complicated but genuine.

“They went through periods when they both made an effort to write more, but after a while that usually faded. It wasn’t anything serious, it was just life. The dance recitals, making the rent, first real jobs, pickups, dropoffs, the fights that seemed so important, the laundry, the promotions, the vacations taken, shoes bought, movies watched, lunches packed. It was a haze of the everyday that blurred the big things and made them feel distant and small.”

This quote summarizes Abby and Gretchen’s friendship after high school and into adulthood, further developing the complexity of friendship. Because adulthood gets busy with family and work, the women don’t talk as often as they used to, but nevertheless, their relationship remains strong.

“There was no falling-out, no great tragedy, just a hundred thousand trivial moments they didn’t share, each one an inch of distance between them, and eventually those inches added up to miles.

But there were moments when they had no time for distance. When Gretchen’s dad had a stroke and she got the call to come home. When Abby’s daughter was born and she named her Mary after her mom, and Abby’s dad and Gretchen were the only two people who knew that whatever war the two of them had been fighting had finally ended in surrender. When Gretchen had her first solo exhibition. When Glee reappeared in their lives and things got messy for a while. When Abby filed for divorce. When those things happened, they learned that although those inches may add up to miles, sometimes those miles were only inches tall.”

The complexity of friendship is further developed here, as an adult Abby and Gretchen always make time for each other when significant events happen. Friendship, especially in adulthood, is not always consistent, but the novel frames it as worthwhile.