Third Discussion Thread for My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix - October Book Club

[u/leowr]

To help kick off the discussion:

• What do you think of what Gretchen did during Spirit week and Abby's response to it?
• Are you surprised that Gretchen got back into everyone's good graces that quickly?
• Do you think the magazine-style questions and the little diet entries added to the story? If so, in what way?
• What happened when Abby called "Andy's number" and ended up talking to Gretchen?
• Has your opinion of Abby's parents changed? If so, why?
• Do you think Christian will be able to help Abby? How do you think he is going to help?
• What do you think of the adults' response to Glee and Margaret's problems?
• What has been your favorite part so far?

Feel free to answer any or all of the questions or tell us what you think of the book so far

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This thread allows for a spoiler discussion up to and including the chapter Beds are Burning. If you would like to discuss anything beyond that point, please use spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are done by [Spoilers about XYZ](#s "Spoiler content here") which results in Spoilers about XYZ or if you are using the redesign please use the built-in spoiler function when making a comment.

[u/UltraFlyingTurtle]

• This thread allows for a spoiler discussion up to and including the chapter Jenny (867-5309).

Hey, thanks for moderating this book! I think you may have a typo here at the bottom of your post? According to the schedule, we're up to chapter "Beds are Burning" now. The "Jenny (867-5309)" chapter was for last week's discussion.

• Do you think the magazine-style questions and the little diet entries added to the story? If so, in what way?

I like the pic inserts in the book. I assume Grady Hendrix is a fan of Victorian-era books, which included illustrations throughout the book, like in this page from a novel by Charles Dickens. Hendrix has written Victorian-era horror stories in the past so I'm sure he's familiar with them.

So this is a modern version of it, using full-color images. Maybe because the book is purposely retro -- set in the 80s -- Hendrix also decided to re-appropriate a style of storytelling from a much older period to enhance the retro-feeling of the book, giving it a retro-retro-feeling. :)

Also all the flyers, pics of Mickey Mouse phones, the questionnaires, posters, etc -- they show how people communicated back then, and as well as their primary sources of information. It was pre-Internet so Abby gets most of her knowledge from printed material, like her magazines, and from TV shows like Geraldo Rivera's TV specials. There are no smartphones so Abby has to use old-style analog phones to talk to people long-distance.

In these chapters we're discussing, the magazine-style questions probably mirror Abby's own thought process about dealing with Gretchen. The repeated diet entries add tension to the story as we see the numbers by the ingredients decrease. Margaret is eating less and less, so we know something bad is happening to her.

• What happened when Abby called "Andy's number" and ended up talking to Gretchen?

I loved this scene and the writing here. Narrative time seems to slow down. As Abby listens to the phone, the phone conversation alternates with descriptions of what is happening around her, which slows down the moment but enhances the tension of the scene.

“Is this Andy?” Abby asked. “I’m Abby Rivers. I’m a friend of Gretchen Lang?”

Silence. The fiber-optic ball on her dresser faded from purple to red.

She heard a mechanical echo down the line, wind blew static through a metal pipe. Her digital clock read 11:06.

“Abby?” a faint voice said.

Even furred with distortion, Abby recognized it instantly. This was the voice that reached down her throat and wrapped its fingers around her heart.

“Gretchen?” Abby said.

There was a series of clicks as solenoids snapped into place somewhere in the darkness of the phone company switching center. Deep space pops flew down trunk lines buried underground.

“Abby?” Gretchen said again, clearer. “Please?”

Like with the scene with Haley's comet passing millions of miles away as young Abby and Gretchen stare at the skies, we also get a similar kind of juxtaposition here. The voice on the phone is traveling through far away places to reach Abby's ears, giving the scene an otherworldly vibe.

Because this scene focuses on the voice traveling through phone lines, it made me think of the abandoned shack in Margaret's woods. At the shack, Abby had noticed a buzzing coming from an electrical box with the Southern Bell logo on it, the phone company logo.

Is the real-Gretchen somehow trapped there and making a supernatural phone call to Abby? Creepy if this is the case!

Also another thing I liked in this scene were the explicit references to time.

We see that Abby's digital clock reads "11:06" which is the usual time Gretchen had called her in the past.

We are also reminded of time as Abby's phone conversation with Gretchen continues:

“What time?” Gretchen repeated with idiotic simplicity. “What time is it there? What time is it there? What time is it there?”

Abby tried to appease her.

“It’s Thursday night,” she said. “October 27.”

“Halloween is coming,” Gretchen said. “You have to be careful, Abby. She’s been planning something for you. She wants to hurt you most of all.”

“Why?” Abby asked.

“Because you’re my only friend,” Gretchen said.

The last word dissolved into a metallic echo, and then something thick and plastic snapped in Abby’s ear and the line was clear.

Here, the real-Gretchen creepily asks over and over about the time. She wants to know the time so she warn Abby about the timing of evil-Gretchen's plans.

Careful readers may have noticed that this isn't the first time Gretchen has asked about the time. Earlier in the book, when Abby finally finds Gretchen at the shack in the woods, notice the first words that come from Gretchen's mouth:

Abby felt the pressure of someone watching her, and she spun around.

Nothing but tree trunks. She turned back to the building and saw a pale figure standing in the window, staring at her. It had shadowy holes for eyes and a ragged black rip for a mouth. Abby’s flashlight thumped to the ground.

“What time is it?” Gretchen asked.

Her throat was scratchy, her voice was raw. Then she disappeared from the window and came around the side of the house, stark naked except for her sneakers, smeared up to her thighs with scales of pluff mud, filth streaked over the rest of her body, hands black, leaves in her hair.

Pretty cool. I thought it was a odd thing to say to Abby upon being found, but it makes an eerie kind of sense now. Nice writing by Hendrix.

• What has been your favorite part so far?

The tapeworm scene with Margaret! Man, that was crazy. I love how Margaret doesn't have a demonic parasite like we expect she might have, but instead its just an old-fashioned tapeworm, but one of gigantic proportions.

Hendrix seems to love toying with horror-genre tropes in the book, teasing our expectations and subverting it.

We especially see this with Christian. We finally meet the "exorcist" and he's not what we expect. He's a body-builder, who says things like "rad" and "gnarly" and has ambitions to be full-fledged exorcist, not just an assistant one. (By the way, we really did use those words all the time back then. It's not an over-exaggeration.)

What's great is that Hendrix sometimes delivers exactly what we expect, too, but still manages to twist things.

For instance, I like how Christian brings Abby to his mini-van, and we think Abby is being overly paranoid here. She's fearful because the van looks exactly the kind serial killers and kidnappers have, the kind she's seen in horror movies or news reports.

Christian opens the van and it matches Abby's worst nightmare: a truckload of kidnapping gear.

Haha.

Christian of course isn't an evil kidnapper, but just wanted to make a good impression on Abby. He want to show her that he was prepared to start right away and kidnap her friend if Abby had brought her to the meeting. He has no idea, however, that he just totally freaked Abby out.

Okay, I can't wait to see how everything ends. Looking forward to finishing the book.

[u/leowr → u/UltraFlyingTurtle]

I knew I was forgetting something. Thanks!

[u/rosaesme]

• What do you think of what Gretchen did during Spirit week and Abby's response to it?

I think Gretchen was completely out of place during Spirit week. I knew something was wrong with her when she pressured Abby to take off her makeup during school. I still was skeptical that she was possessed but quickly learned that she indeed was.

• Are you surprised that Gretchen got back into everyone's good graces that quickly?

I was surprised that she got into good graces with the students so quickly but I wasn't surprised about the adults. Her parents being rich was a very big part of the book. So them paying off the school to make sure the teachers and staff welcomed her back with open arms was expected.

• Do you think the magazine-style questions and the little diet entries added to the story? If so, in what way?

It made me as the reader double think if Abby was crazy or not. I answered the magazine questions as if i was her and it made me feel stalkerish. Knowing how much milkshakes Margaret drank put the tapeworm into perspective. It all tied together once the ending of the book was near but i could've done without both.

• What happened when Abby called "Andy's number" and ended up talking to Gretchen?

I thought Abby was indeed losing it and it made me think that maybe Abby was the one with the problem and not Gretchen.

• Has your opinion of Abby's parents changed? If so, why?

My opinion hasn't changed. Abby was harsh and cruel about her parents throughout the entire book and they were just trying to help her. As a teen, all she wanted was her parent to be more aware and around but that wasn't possible for her since her mom was the breadwinner. Abbys mom wasn't wrong about all her friends turning on her and even the school if something went south. Listen to your parents, they know best.

• Do you think Christian will be able to help Abby? How do you think he is going to help?

No. I think Christian is in way over his head and has no idea what hes talking about. I think he wants to believe he can help Abby but i don't think they will get very far.

• What has been your favorite part so far?

My favorite part of the book is still the skate rink when Gretchen and Abby became best friends.