Small Town Wedding
Gradually, the remaining guests of the unofficial party began to leave. I couldn’t avoid talking to Jannalynn anymore. She’d been sitting behind the table within reach of Sam since I’d returned, and she hadn’t said a word. I knew this situation was hard for her, and I felt sorry it was, but there was nothing I could do about it. She’d known when she’d come to Wright that it was the wrong thing to do.
What could I see in her brain? I saw grief, resentment, and envy. Jannalyn was wondering why Sam couldn’t see that she was just like me. She was brave and pretty and loyal, too.
(Next day Sookie and Sam talking about Jannalyn) “She’s a lot younger than me,” he said. “And she has some impulse control issues. But she’s really brave, really loyal.”
Okay, that was just weird it was like listening to an echo of Jannalyn’s thoughts the night before.
Dead in the Family
I nodded. “Okay. Well, I better get home.” I wanted to check my cell phone for messages and my landline, too. And my computer. I was dying for someone to reach out and touch me.
…”Eric’s out of touch?” he said, proving that Sam is one shrewd guesser.
Dead and Gone
I went in the employee entrance and right to Sam’s office.
“Brace yourself. Tonight’s the night,” he said.
I was so proud he’d told me, and he’d echoed my own thoughts so closely, I couldn’t help but smile.
********
“Has someone told Sam, do you know?”
Dr. Ludwig shrugged. “I don’t know. I imagine so. He seems to hear everything.”
Dead to the World
(Sookie and Sam talking about Eric regaining his memory) “I think it’s for the best,” I told him. “Definitely.” But I would be going home to an empty house again. The knowledge skittered at the edges of my awareness, but I wouldn’t look at it directly.
“Too bad you weren’t working the afternoon shift,” he said, somehow following a similar train of thought. “Calvin Norris was in here.”
*********
(Earlier in the book. Sam is telling Sookie about Calvin) “Calvin’s an okay guy, as far as I know … Some of the other guys from Hotshot own a welding shop. I hear they do good work. But I don’t know what goes on in Hotshot after they go home at night …”
(Later in the book, Sookie reveals to Sam that Jason vanished the night Crystal was waiting at his house) “Crystal – she’s the Hotshot girl he was with New Year’s Eve? The skinny black-headed girl at the search?”
I nodded.
“The one Felton loves so much?”
“He what?”
“Felton, you know, the one who came along on the search. She’s been his big love his whole life.”
“And you know this how?” Since I, the mind reader, didn’t, I was distinctly piqued.
“He told me one night when he’d had too much to drink. These guys from Hotshot, they don’t come in much, but when they do, they drink serious.”
(Kind of contrasts with his earlier statement that he doesn’t know what goes on in Hotshot after they go home at night)
Dead as a Doornail
(When Sookie and Sam are kissing in his office)
If I’d had the gift of teleportation, I would’ve had us somewhere more private in an instant. Remotely, I felt there was something kind of tacking at feeling this lustful in a messy office in a bar …
“Not good enough for you here,” he said.
Dead Until Dark
“No! No!” he exclaimed, apparently even angrier. “I don’t want to lose you!” He gripped my shoulders and gave me a little shake. Then he stood looking at me with wide, crackling blue eyes, and I felt a surge of heat rushing out from him. Touching accelerates my disability, makes it imperative that I hear the person touching me.
… I appreciated the delicacy of this and wondered if Sam had touched me on purpose.
*********
I could not read Sam’s thoughts. I could feel his emotions but I could not spell out one single thought. This was so fascinating and unexpected that I stepped out of JB’s embrace, wanting to go up to Sam and grab his arms and really probe around in his head … Now he felt me in his head and though he kept on walking toward me, his mind flinched back. Despite his invitation to me, he hadn’t known I would see he was different from others; I picked up on that until he shut me down.
I’d never felt anything like it. It was like an iron door slamming. In my face.
********************************************************************************
Things that make you go hmmm.
Yup! I’m totally with ya on this one also. I’ve never liked or trusted Sam ever. Great points you pointed out. I can’t recall exactly where this quote is at the moment, but I know we’ve talked about on SVB. That Sookie said something to the line that she saw the color purple in Sam’s head. Crap. I’m pretty sure it was in Dead Reckoning. That sends just another huge red flag to the list of your post. Thanks for posting! DeAnna
I should clarify that I’m not saying that Sam IS a telepath. I’m just raising the question. One of the things that is most frequently discussed about Sam is how does he know everything. The supe library doesn’t really do it as an explanation for me. The reason I wrote this post is that there were a couple of things in Small Town Wedding (Charlaine’s choice of words) that I thought were interesting and so I thought I’d go back through the series to see if there were any other scenes in which her wording stood out to me.
IF Sam is a telepath I don’t think it necessarily means he is up to no good either. There is just still so much we don’t know about him at this point. One thing I am near certain about is that *something* is coming with him. Throughout the series Charlaine goes to great pains to emphasize there are two people that Sookie NEVER listens in to: Terry and Sam. We got the Terry reveal in DR so there has got to be something with Sam. I don’t expect it to be revealed until the final book though.
ITA – something is coming with Sam. While I don’t know what it is, Charlaine has always been very deliberate with her wording and we now have the precedent of Terry’s “secret”. There’s certainly something there –
And wouldn’t Sookie be pissed, if it turned out to be true?
A thought provoking post, for sure.
Very interesting Indeed! ITA – something is coming. Excellent point about Terry as well. Hmmmmm…
If this theory comes to light it will smooth out any fears Charlaine has planned for Sookie in the final book. How can Sookie recover emotionally when a friend that she held in high regard withheld such an important aspect of himself? If he is a telepath wouldn’t we as readers want to know why he did not respond to Sookie’s cries for help in nearly all the books. Interesting thought, I have some research to do.
Thank you
I still just have this feeling that Sam is not always Sam. The story about Fintan coming to Gran as her husband couldn’t have been for nothing, stories like that in these books always mean something.
Could be. There is the interesting part in DUD when “Terry” calls her to Merlotte’s when in fact Terry did not call her. I can’t remember if Sam admitted doing that or if it was strongly implied that he called her as Terry. DUD is not my favorite book in the series so I have trouble recalling the details.
On a side note, any thoughts I had of Sam potentially being a telepath were put to rest in Deadlocked. I don’t think he is.
There is still some mystery there but I am now tending to think there will be no big reveal either good or bad coming with Sam. I think (and I am purely speculating here) that this may be a case of Sam’s story evolving as a result of Harris extending the series to 13 instead of 10. If you think of the series originally ending at 10, and you look at Book 8, Sam positively reeked in that book. And it kind of fit because up until that book Sam barely had any page time particularly books 6 and 7. I think he had about 10 pages total in those two books. It would be really interesting to see what bombs Harris would have exploded with Sam if the series concluded at 10.
Now, however, Sam has become more developed into the friend/business partner. I just can’t see a big bomb coming with him. I could be wrong though.