“There was a vulture on the mailbox of my grandmother’s house. As omens go, it doesn’t get much more obvious than that.”

The first line of the novel establishes Sam’s first-person narration. The fact that she still thinks of the house as her grandmother’s even though she is dead suggests right away that Gran Mae was a strong personality. This opening also introduces the vultures, initially as a bad omen. This vulture becomes important as the story progresses, and vultures gain increasing importance toward the end.

“The underground children. Heh. I hadn’t thought of that in years. Gran Mae’s personal answer to the boogeyman. The underground children got you if you swore, if you disrespected your elders.”

Sam recalls her grandmother threatening her with punishment from the underground children, which she initially believes to be a creepy childhood tale, meant to scare children into obedience. This is the first mention of the underground children, and it lays the groundwork for the ending plot twist.

“Gran Mae felt very, very strongly that the world was divided into those with class and those without. I can’t remember if she believed in the Rapture, but if she had, only the classy would be saved. I don’t know what happened to the non-classy in her cosmology. Possibly the underground children got them, or possibly they were just doomed to live out their days in a giant Walmart of the Damned.”

Because Gran Mae is dead at the beginning of the story, the author accomplishes much of her characterization through memories and commentary in Sam’s narration, as here. Gran Mae is a stereotypical white Southern woman: religious, racist, etiquette-obsessed, self-righteous, and controlling. Again, Sam mentions the underground children in her memories of Gran Mae, reinforcing their importance.