Kentucky Dragon

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Park ably uses religious symbolism as well as mythical motifs of ancient Germanic people demons and even a dragon in a story that is certainly not for the faint of heart ... A twisty violent tale of a brutal legacy. - <em>Kirkus Reviews</em></strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>A demonic debt destroys Mark's family until he grows up to face its collector The Chicken Man.</strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>*</em></strong></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>So slowly slowly she got up</em></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>And slowly she came to him</em></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>And all she said when she came there:</em></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>'Young man I think you are dying.'</em></p><p></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Barbara Allen</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> traditional folk song</span></p><p></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Mark is eleven years old the first time he meets the chicken man. A thin man with discolored fingernails the chicken man tells Mark how to make people happy using an icepick and a metal hammer. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Tap tap tap</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> in through the eyes until there are no more tears. As the snow in Kentucky melts from a mine fire deep underground the chicken man collects a brutal debt that leaves Mark traumatized until with enough time bourbon and therapy he convinces himself to forget it all.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>And he does for eighteen years.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Until the chicken man returns. Then from Kentucky to New York City to a German village where a coal fire has been burning for three centuries Mark discovers the dark truth about his family's debt and the flames that never go out.</span></p>