Previous
Emmy
June is Maggot and Emmy’s aunt who becomes Emmy’s adoptive mother. June is a nurse in Knoxville who then moves back to Lee County to be closer to her family. She dates a pharmaceutical representative, Kent, who pushes for more widespread use of opioid painkillers. June soon comes to see the harm that opioids are doing to people in Lee County and blames Kent, along with the pharmaceutical companies, for all the harm the opioid epidemic her hometown. As a nurse in a local clinic, she sees firsthand the impacts of opioid addiction, and she becomes a vocal critic of pharmaceutical companies. She also steps in to help both Demon and Emmy when they are at their lowest and then financially supports their journeys to sobriety. She is portrayed, then, as one of the most community-minded people in the novel: as someone who is always ready to help others when they are in need.
Aunt June Quotes in Demon Copperhead
The Demon Copperhead quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt June or refer to Aunt June. 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:
).
Chapter 4
Quotes
For whatever reason Emmy said okay, let’s do it. I had to hold her hand. She kept her eyes closed.
It was true about Aunt June keeping track. Which was not true of my mom in any way, shape, or form. So that was me promising Emmy that life is to be trusted. I knew better. I should have let her go with her gut: Never get back on the horse, because it’s going to throw you every damn chance it gets. Then maybe she’d have been wise to the shit that came for her later on, and maybe it would have turned out better.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
Mom was the unknown soldier. Walmart would have a new stock girl in time for the Christmas shoppers […]. Our trailer home would be thoroughly Cloroxed and every carpet torn out, so the Peggots could rent it to one of Aunt June’s high school friends that got left flat by both her kids’ daddies […]. Wanting a fresh start for this girl and her little family, I’m sure they scrubbed the place clean of old stains, including the two pencil lines on the kitchen wall that proved I once stood taller by a hair than my mom. Her life left no marks on a thing.
Chapter 41
Quotes
She said it was hydrocodone and something. Not oxy then, I said, and she said it was really no better than that. I was struggling for words and possibly catching the asshole bug from Coach because I asked her whatever happened to Kent’s “pain is a vital sign” and all that.
She hissed at me: “Kent Holt is a fucking hired killer for his company.”
Chapter 59
Quotes
“It’s not natural for boys to lose their minds,” she said. “It happens because they’ve had too many things taken away from them.”
I asked her like what. She got up and walked around the room, upset. No decent schooling, she said. No chance to get good at anything that uses our talents. No future. They took all that away and supplied us with the tools for cooking our brains, hoping we’d kill each other before realizing the real assholes are a thousand miles from here […].
She sat down on the bed again. “The question you have to answer now is, What are you willing to do for yourself? And I won’t lie, it’s going to be harder than anything you’ve done before.”
Get the entire Demon Copperhead LitChart as a printable PDF.
Aunt June Quotes in Demon Copperhead
The Demon Copperhead quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt June or refer to Aunt June. 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:
).
Chapter 4
Quotes
For whatever reason Emmy said okay, let’s do it. I had to hold her hand. She kept her eyes closed.
It was true about Aunt June keeping track. Which was not true of my mom in any way, shape, or form. So that was me promising Emmy that life is to be trusted. I knew better. I should have let her go with her gut: Never get back on the horse, because it’s going to throw you every damn chance it gets. Then maybe she’d have been wise to the shit that came for her later on, and maybe it would have turned out better.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
Mom was the unknown soldier. Walmart would have a new stock girl in time for the Christmas shoppers […]. Our trailer home would be thoroughly Cloroxed and every carpet torn out, so the Peggots could rent it to one of Aunt June’s high school friends that got left flat by both her kids’ daddies […]. Wanting a fresh start for this girl and her little family, I’m sure they scrubbed the place clean of old stains, including the two pencil lines on the kitchen wall that proved I once stood taller by a hair than my mom. Her life left no marks on a thing.
Chapter 41
Quotes
She said it was hydrocodone and something. Not oxy then, I said, and she said it was really no better than that. I was struggling for words and possibly catching the asshole bug from Coach because I asked her whatever happened to Kent’s “pain is a vital sign” and all that.
She hissed at me: “Kent Holt is a fucking hired killer for his company.”
Chapter 59
Quotes
“It’s not natural for boys to lose their minds,” she said. “It happens because they’ve had too many things taken away from them.”
I asked her like what. She got up and walked around the room, upset. No decent schooling, she said. No chance to get good at anything that uses our talents. No future. They took all that away and supplied us with the tools for cooking our brains, hoping we’d kill each other before realizing the real assholes are a thousand miles from here […].
She sat down on the bed again. “The question you have to answer now is, What are you willing to do for yourself? And I won’t lie, it’s going to be harder than anything you’ve done before.”
