Ratings12
Average rating4.3
"Kingsolver is a writer who can help us understand and navigate the chaos of these times." --Minneapolis Star Tribune From the New York Times bestselling author of Unsheltered and Flight Behavior, a brilliant novel which enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity. "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose." Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It's the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.
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I don't know what I was expecting, but I know I was hoping for a book that struck me as much as Animal Dreams did. This book just didn't grab me and had strong after-school special vibes.
Loved this book. So much hit so close to home (both figuratively and geographically) and it felt authentic in a way that I didn’t quite expect. I don’t know why, but I had not categorized Kingsolver as an “Appalachian” writer previously, despite knowing of her bonafides in terms of being from Kentucky, but this book is clearly written with a love and intimate knowledge for the region and its people. There’s more going on here, too. The social justice angle. The David Copperfield retelling. The language itself. All of it just got me thinking in all of the best ways, even if those ways are also painful.
For anyone who also loved this book who finds themselves interested in learning more about Appalachia or reading more Appalachian literature, Kingsolver put together a really nice reading list for The New York Times.
Originally posted at brett.seybert.me.