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Maggot
Murrell Stone, nicknamed Stoner, is Mom’s boyfriend who is physically and verbally abusive to Mom and Demon. After Mom dies from an overdose, Demon becomes convinced that she had returned to drugs in part to cope with the pain that came along with her relationship with Stoner. The novel depicts stoner as a textbook example of toxic masculinity. He is quick to anger, unreflective, prone to violence, and discriminates against Maggot because he suspects Maggot is gay. There are moments during Demon’s relationship with Dori when the novel seems to intimate that Demon might be at risk of inheriting some of Stoner’s harmful behaviors, as when Demon breaks the TV when he is angry at Dori for always watching it. After Dori dies, though, instead of continuing down a path toward more and more toxic masculinity, Demon pursues sobriety and opens himself up to his emotions in a way that Stoner never would.
Stoner Quotes in Demon Copperhead
The Demon Copperhead quotes below are all either spoken by Stoner or refer to Stoner. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
Mom had walked down the road and Stoner was bent over kissing her like he was trying to suck something out of her guts with a straw. And her a willing party to the crime.
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Chapter 16 Quotes
Maybe life, or destiny, or Jesus if you really need to put somebody in charge of things had finally flung down one too many rocks in Mom’s road and she called it a day. That’s option one. Or two, maybe she didn’t aim to die but miscalculated to cap off her twenty-nine-year pileup of miscalculations, one of those of course being me. I could spend the rest of my life asking which it was, suicide or accident. No answer on that line.
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Chapter 41 Quotes
Where does the road to ruin start? That’s the point of getting all this down, I’m told. To get a handle on some choice you made. Or was made for you. By the bullies that curdled your heart’s milk and honey, or the ones before that curdled theirs. Hell, let’s blame the coal guys, or whoever wrote the book of Lee County commandments. Thou shalt forsake all things you might love or study on, books, numbers, a boy’s life made livable in pictures he drew. Leave these ye redneck faithful, to chase the one star left shining on this place: manly bloodthirst. The smell of mauled sod and sweat and pent-up lust and popcorn. The Friday-night lights.
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Get the entire Demon Copperhead LitChart as a printable PDF.
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Stoner Character Timeline in Demon Copperhead
The timeline below shows where the character Stoner appears in Demon Copperhead. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
Murrell Stone, whom people call Stoner, shows up, and Mom immediately likes him. He drives a Harley, is bald as a...
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Chapter 5
When Demon returns from the two-week trip to Knoxville, he finds out Mom and Stoner have gotten married. Stoner and Mom take over Demon’s bedroom because that’s the bigger one,...
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Stoner’s money comes from his job driving a semi-truck with a special license that allows him...
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Mrs. Peggot ends up talking to Mom, who then tries to talk to Stoner about his treatment of Demon during a commercial break in the middle of an episode...
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Chapter 7
...classes together. They hang out for a couple hours after school lets out, too. When Stoner gets home, he yells at Demon for tracking mud inside. Demon mops up the mess,...
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...“on lockdown” for the next few days and over the weekend. The days blur together. Stoner and Mom go on shouting outside his door, and he imagines the Peggots can hear...
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Chapter 8
...Demon finds Mom passed out on her bed, he grabs the phone to call 911. Stoner punches him to try and stop him. Mrs. Peggot pounds on the door. Demon rides...
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The woman from DSS asks about other fights Demon and Stoner have had. She asks Demon to take off his shirt and takes pictures of his...
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Chapter 9
...boys won’t like a biter and that he's told them about what Demon did to Stoner. “A wonder no one’s filed off your teeth,” he says.
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Chapter 11
...they can talk about Demon going back to live with her. When Demon asks about Stoner, Miss Barks says he and Demon will have to “learn to get along better.” In...
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...with Miss Barks pretending to read while she discreetly keeps tabs on them. Mom says Stoner is paying for her rehab, and that Demon is her motivation for getting sober. That...
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Chapter 12
...piles of leaves to jump in them and then play music and dance. Mom says Stoner isn’t happy about her being pregnant. When Stoner comes home, Mom tells him Demon’s happy...
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Chapter 13
While Mom recovers from the overdose, Demon gets weekly visits with her. Stoner isn’t around for the visits, and Mom complains that he’s not supportive of her having...
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Chapter 17
Demon has one last supervised visit with Stoner. It’s unclear what role, if any, Stoner will play in Demon’s life going forward. They...
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Chapter 21
...is a guy named Ghost, who has white hair and tattoos and is one of Stoner’s friends. Demon gets paid $16 per day and can eat food at Golly’s Market. Following...
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Chapter 43
...to Mr. Peggot’s funeral together. The church is filled with people from the community. Even Stoner is there. Demon doesn’t talk to him. Maggot is wearing a suit and tie. Demon...
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