The Poisonwood Bible Book 5, Chapter 12 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Adah Price. Atlanta. January 1985.

  • Adah returns from Africa and tells her mother that Father died.
  • Mom's response? She just walks out into the garden.
  • But Adah has more to say. She tells her mom that she despised her father. She hated him the most when he made fun of her books and hit her and her sisters.
  • She says that she often dreamed of burning him up in bed. "I only didn't because you [Mother] were in it too" (5.10.44).
  • Then Adah says to herself that she didn't burn Mother too because she "wanted [her] to remember what he did to us" (5.10.48). Wow. Tell us what you really think, Adah.