Remember: You only did one thing.
And what would you think if that same God decided, in a radical move, to become one of them, to take on that mud flesh forever, and to let them kill him, and to die for them, so they could be reconciled with him and with him again . . . forever?
You were supposed to be with him forever. You only did one thing.
And how would you feel upon knowing that not every mud person jumped at the chance to have that great gift you feel so much more deserving of—only one thing—that the majority of the mud people decided they didn’t want or need?
Would you be jealous? Would you hate the mud people?
Would you want them to die?
Of course you would.
And so I reread the story of God’s love affair with humans through this new lens, and Demon: A Memoir was born.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT DEMON
• The quote by Isak Dinesen is from the book Out of Africa, which is also the author’s favorite movie.
• The liquor stores mentioned in the book were originally written as “package stores,” a New England term.
• The Borders store in chapter 2 was the location of the author’s first book signing of Demon.
• Esad is based loosely on the story of a local Bosnian tailor in the author’s home city.
• Sheila’s two boys, Justin and Caleb, are the two sons of the author’s friend since first grade, Julie.
• The star-shaped perfume bottle that used to sit on Aubrey’s bathroom counter is “Angel” by Thierry Mugler.
• Lucian’s “Carpe Brewem” sweatshirt in the coffee shop chapter came from Lazlo’s brewery in Lincoln, Nebraska.
• Lucian in the coffee shop (wearing the brewery sweatshirt) is the author’s friend, Scott.
• The Asian man on the plan with the receding hairline is the author’s father.
• Lucian’s “Animals Taste Good” T-shirt in the Commons chapter is made by David and Goliath.
• The author and her sister have a cameo at the bar at the Four Seasons Hotel.
• Every piece of art mentioned in the museum chapter was on display at the time of the chapter’s writing in 2005.
• The house in Haverhill is based on one owned by the author’s college friend, Heather.
• Clay’s small apartment building on Norfolk is based on one exactly like it in real life.
• The Gospel Room is a real church the size of a house across the street on Norfolk.
• The tea shop in Cambridge is called Tea Luxe in real life.
• All of the Bible searches conducted in Demon (based on BibleGateway.com) yielded the same results that Clay found at the time of Demon’s writing.
• Clay’s office exists as described in Cambridge, across from the former Quantum Books.
• The author is named for a Puccini opera. The operas mentioned in Demon are Puccini operas.
• The dim sum restaurant is the China Pearl, in Chinatown.
• The Four Seasons Bristol room was indeed refurbished just before the rewriting of Demon.
• The Grover book is a real book acquired by the author in the manner described by Clay.
• Clay’s Cabo getaway took place at the Riu resort.
You really do have a choice to make.
You can find more expanded materials on Demon: A Memoir at www.Pureenjoyment.com!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When Demon was first published in 2007, I had no idea what lay before me. I knew it would be a great journey, but what I did not know is how many amazing people would come alongside me, or the chord that this story would strike in the hearts of others.
I have the best readers in the world. Thank you—for your letters, your prayers, your support and encouragement. You are with me each time I sit down to write; you are constantly on my mind.
Thank you to the champions: my agent, Steve Laube, and my editor, Karen Ball. Words are feeble tools; they cannot do my gratitude to either of you justice.
Julie Gwinn, I am so grateful for you. Everyone at B&H, it is a privilege to work with you. Kris and Jeff Beckenbach, Chad Bring, Katie Weaver, Kristin Nelson: thank you for keeping me relevant and (relatively) sane. And thank you: my friends, my sister Amy, my heart-sister Meredith, and Rick, my beloved, for loving me even when I’m not (sane—which is most of the time).
I owe a great debt of gratitude to those who enabled my obsession and made this book possible: Joyce Hart, Jeff Gerke, Karen Lee-Thorp, Reagen Reed, Dan Mueller, Conan Schafer, Peggy Malzacher, Don Hawkins, Greg Stier, Tim Hodges, Scott Boles, Alice Yoon, Angie Bentley, and my parents (all of them).
Thank you most eminently to my God, Elohim, for your relentless pursuit of this girl’s heart.
PROLOGUE
I have seen paradise and ruin. I have known bliss and terror. I have walked with God.
And I know that God made the heart the most fragile and resilient of organs, that a lifetime of joy and pain might be encased in one mortal chamber.
I still recall my first moment of consciousness—an awareness I’ve never seen in the eyes of any of my own children at birth: the sheer ignorance and genius of consciousness, when we know nothing and accept everything.
Of course, the memory of that waking moment is fainter now, like the smell of the soil of that garden, like the leaves of the fig tree in Eden after dawn—dew and leaf green. It fades with that sense of something once tasted on the tip of the tongue, savored now in memory, replaced by the taste of something similar but never quite the same.
His breath a lost sough, the scent of earth and leaf mold that was his sweaty skin has faded too quickly. So like an Eden dawn—dew on fig leaves.
His eyes were blue, my Adam’s.
How I celebrated that color, shrouded now in shriveled eyelids—he who was never intended to have even a wrinkle!
But even as I bend to smooth his cheek, my hair has become a white waterfall upon his Eden—flesh and loins that gave life to so many.
I think for a moment that I hear the One and that he is weeping. It is the first time I have heard him in so long, and my heart cries out: He is dead! My father, my brother, my love!
I envy the earth that envelopes him. I envy the dust that comes of him and my children who sow and eat of it.
This language of Adam’s—the word that meant merely “man” before it was his name—given him by God himself, is now mine. And this is my love song: I will craft these words into the likeness of the man before I, too, return to the earth of Adam’s bosom.
My story has been told in only the barest of terms. It is time you heard it all. It is my testament to the strength of the heart, which has such capacity for joy, such space for sorrow, like a vessel that fills and fills without bursting.
My seasons are nearly as many as a thousand. So now listen, sons, and hear me, daughters. I, Havah, fashioned by God of Adam, say this:
In the beginning, there was God . . .
But for me, there was Adam.
1
A whisper in my ear: Wake!
Blue. A sea awash with nothing but a drifting bit of down, flotsam on an invisible current. I closed my eyes. Light illuminated the thin tissues of my eyelids.
A bird trilled. Near my ear: the percussive buzz of an insect. Overhead, tree boughs stirred in the warming air.
I lay on a soft bed of herbs and grass that tickled my cheek, my shoulders, and the arch of my foot, whispering sibilant secrets up to the trees.