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If a mother is lying in her own piss and pill bottles while they’re slapping the kid she’s shunted out, telling him to look alive: likely the bastard is doomed. Kid born to the junkie is a junkie. He’ll grow up to be everything you don’t want to know, the rotten teeth and dead-zone eyes, the nuisance of locking up your tools in the garage so they don’t walk off, the rent-by-the-week motel squatting well back from the scenic highway. This kid, if he wanted a shot at the finer things, should have got himself delivered to some rich or smart or Christian, nonusing type of mother. Anybody will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose.
In this quotation, which occurs in the novel’s opening chapter, Demon reflects on the systemic forces that mark children at birth based on the circumstances of their parents, particularly their socioeconomic status and struggles with addiction. The graphic imagery—of a mother “lying in her own piss and pill bottles” and a child “marked from the get-out”—highlights the societal stigma surrounding children born into poverty and addiction. Demon’s cynical tone reflects his internalization of these narratives, as he believes that a child’s trajectory is largely predetermined by the failures or struggles of their parents.
Demon, born into the same conditions he describes, fights against these “marks” throughout his life, yet he often succumbs to the expectations society places on him. The line illustrates how systemic neglect and societal judgment compound the struggles of individuals like Demon, making upward mobility and personal agency almost impossible. The deterministic language critiques a culture that abandons the vulnerable, perpetuating cycles of despair rather than offering support. In this context, birth is not just destiny—it is a marker of the systemic failures that doom entire generations.
“I told her I was sure there were good fosters out there that are God’s angels, like everybody says. But I had yet to meet them because they didn’t take kids like me.
“What do you mean, kids like you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
This quotation, a conversation between Demon and Emmy about the foster care system in Chapter 18, speaks directly to the theme of birth as destiny. Demon’s resignation—his belief that “good fosters” don’t take “kids like me”—reveals his internalization of the narrative that children born into poverty, addiction, and neglect are somehow marked for rejection and failure. His inability to articulate exactly what makes him unworthy underscores how deeply ingrained this belief is; it’s not a matter of specific flaws but an overarching sense of doom tied to his origins.
The foster care system, which is meant to provide safety and opportunity for vulnerable children, becomes another mechanism reinforcing the idea that their birth determines their fate. Demon’s experience reflects systemic bias, where children from families with addiction, poverty, or instability are seen as more difficult and therefore less desirable. This perpetuates cycles of neglect, as these children are often placed in abusive or exploitative situations, reinforcing the idea that they are unworthy of care.
I wondered how it would feel to like who you are, changing it up as needed to stay on top with ease. While other girls went on trying too hard, wearing the hair big, the makeup bright, the baby-blue sweatsuits with the whale-tail of thong showing in back above the pants rise. I felt safer in those waters, honestly. Technically Emmy was like me: dead dad, messed-up mom. But damned if you’d ever guess. She seemed like a person born to have sidewalks under her feet.
This quotation, spoken by Demon in Chapter 39 as he reflects on Emmy’s seemingly effortless adaptability, highlights the theme of birth as destiny. Emmy, like Demon, is shaped by the hardships of her upbringing—absent father, troubled mother—but her outward ability to mask these struggles sets her apart. Demon admires how she seems to navigate life with confidence and ease, contrasting her with other girls who appear to be "trying too hard." Emmy’s polished exterior and apparent resilience suggest to Demon that she was "born to have sidewalks under her feet," symbolizing a life of stability and opportunity that feels out of reach for him.
However, this perception is tragically misleading. While Emmy appears to transcend her circumstances, her eventual deterioration into addiction reveals the limits of adaptability as a survival mechanism. Emmy herself later admits that her ability to "change her personality" to suit others has been her downfall, as it strips her of a stable sense of self. This connects to the theme of birth as destiny in a paradoxical way: while Emmy initially seems to defy the limitations of her origins, her lack of a grounded identity ultimately pulls her back into the same cycles of self-destruction that Demon and others in their community struggle with.
