Demon Copperhead: A Novel

The coal-filled mountains of Appalachia cast darkness on the small towns dotted throughout the eastern us. The book begins as the main character, Demon, starts to tell his story, which is a twisting path at the bottom of the mountain that begins interjectory not up the mountain but down into the darkness where spiderwebs of misfortune are found deep in the coal mines. Demon’s childhood is a spiral of terrible circumstances and an environment accompanied by adults who make poor decisions in a community that thrives on coal and drugs (both legal and illegal.) Demon, throughout his childhood, is raised by his young mother, a drug addict, and his neighbors, the Peggots, who assist in trying to keep Demon on a straight path as they deal with the same institutional issues living in the mountaintop small-town Appalachia, drug addiction, crime, poverty, and a poor economy. “The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.” Demon’s mother soon marries a man called Stoner, who is abusive to both Demon and his mother; during their marriage, Demon’s mother relapses, and Demon and Stoner struggle as Demon attempts to call for help and Stoner attempts to stop him, and Demon loses his mother and his unborn sibling. After his mother’s death, he’s given to a foster home where he is worked like hired help on a tobacco farm, echoing the horribleness of how the American foster system can harm a child. Demon learns the ins and outs of the family on this farm through his peers getting into trouble, lusting for a good meal, and starting to take drugs for fun. Eventually, Demon, as he ages and moves to another foster family who struggles in the poverty of Appalachia, Demon runs away to his grandmother’s house in Murder Valley, Tennessee. On his trip, he meets a preacher, gets his money stolen by a prostitute, and sleeps in a barn. Eventually, he meets Betsy Woodall and her disabled brother Dick who get Demon back in shape and, using her connections, gets him a foster home with a football coach. Demon’s problems for a short while disappear, as he starts school again, taking special classes in art and getting by in other courses, but eventually, the freedom of youth escapes him, and he spirals back down, even as he’s the star player a football team the pinnacle of any small town. Demon eventually gets injured and addicted to oxicotten on a legal script that doctors at the time were pushing to everyone to deal with pain, knowing the drug was addictive; in doing so, Demon falls for a girl, Dori, who had her own addiction issues and Demon’s life course even when going well for just a few short years spirals again. “I said probably they were just scared he was going to put ideas in our heads.” She smiled. “Imagine that. A teacher, putting ideas in kids’ heads.” The ending is not a tragic blunder about addiction and poverty but a tour of struggle and pain as Demon grows and fails and picks himself up, eventually using his artistic skills to slowly build a world around him that may give him enough structure to break a cycle that many fail to do. Eventually, Demon realizes the few people close to him who constantly annoyed him were the very few people that only wanted Demon Copperhead to stand tall and be the better person he deserved to be. “I can still feel in my bones how being mad was the one thing holding me together.” The book’s plot is based on a request given to Demon during his struggles and is only released at the end. Mrs. Kingsolver’s writing style has a tone and character not seen in writing, often using appropriate slang and terms in the Appalachian area. Demon’s voice, written by Mrs. Kingsolver, is unique and baked in with a sincerity of hard luck and oppression not often found in modern literary writing. The book was hard to put down and flowed well chapter into the chapter as Demon continued to be put into horrible situations by those who were supposed to take care of him. At times, during the parts of the story about addiction and drugs, I would step away from the book because the trauma, pain, and hopelessness portrayed in the words and mood can become very real. These are all complex topics to read and, at times, to enjoy, but Mrs. Kingsolver provides the proper framing in Demon’s voice and the appropriate amount of darkness and light to keep the pages turning, never letting the pace or tone become too much for the reader. I would consider adding this book to every high school-required reading list. Demon Copperhead was the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2023, was named “10 best books of 2022” by the NYT and Washington Post, and shared the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with Hernan Diaz’s book Trust. This was the first time the prize was split. The novel has lingered on the fringes of books I wanted to read. I picked it up as part of my book club reads for 2024, and I’m glad I did. I would recommend it to anyone, as it features superior prose, various authentic characters, and a modern setting with hundreds of tragedies, comedies, and dramas that must be told. Word of note, this book can get dark and deals with modern-day problems that may trigger emotions and people impacted in such situations.

In an interview with Ezra Klein on his podcast, Barbara Kingsolver said she wanted to write “the great Appalachian novel.” She conceded, however, that the notion “probably sounds ridiculous.” In particular, Kingsolver said she wanted to write about the fact that the people who live in Appalachia “are the most resourceful Americans you’re probably going to find anywhere.” Kingsolver, who was raised in rural Kentucky and now lives in rural Virginia, said she wanted to explore the shame she had internalized from her choice of a place to live. “How many people well-meaning people have asked me, ‘how could I live there in the middle of nowhere?’” said Kingsolver. “People, this is my everywhere. This is my everything.” Later in the chat: “Everybody looks down on the country people and the country people sort of absorb that. You can’t help but absorb it. So when I set out to write my great Appalachian novel. I was paralyzed with self-doubt because, I mean, my starting point was that I wanted to write about the opioid epidemic, which is become a huge assault on our culture, our families, our communities. It’s devastated so many of the good things about this region that we value and that we love. And so I wanted to write about these kids who’ve been damaged and this place that’s been damaged, and it seemed like a really hopelessly sad story. Plus, it’s about people that I didn’t feel the outer world cared about. And so I just really, I spent a couple of years walking around and around this story, trying to figure out how to break into that house because I really felt sure nobody wants to read it.” Well, Kingsolver was wrong. At least, she was wrong about the interest in her topic—not her take on the people of Appalachia. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and 85,000+ ratings on Amazon (4.6 stars). There’s so much to like about Demon Copperhead but one of the main things is that it’s so breezily readable. For a 546-page epic, it goes down fast. It’s episodic, a la Dickens, but the character flow is organic, unforced. Demon’s voice is engaging and his struggles are real, particularly when it comes to the challenges of the foster care system and the brutality of OxyContin addictions. Kingsolver’s empathy for addicts comes pouring out of the story. She is non-judgmental, plays it straight. Here is Demon, somewhat early on, looking back on the power of addiction: “I had roads to travel before I would know it’s not that simple, the dope versus the person you love. That a craving can ratchet itself up and up inside a body and a mind, at the same time that body’s strength for tolerating is favorite drug goes down and down. That the longer you’ve gone hurting between fixes, the higher the odds that you’ll reach too hard for the stars next time. That first big rush of relief could be your last. In the long run, that’s how I’ve come to picture Mom at the end: reaching as hard as her little body would stretch, trying to touch the blue sky, reaching for some peace.” That’s as good a passage about the feeling of addiction, and a description of its power, that I’ve ever read. (Kingsolver also read that section on Klein’s podcast.) Kingsolver is a deceiving writer. Her style is unassuming and keen-eyed. The text is full of specificity. And energy. If you have any doubts about tackling this book because it looks too heavy, squash those notions. Here’s the beginning of Chapter 34: “A lot of firsts that school year. First scrimmage, first JV game, first tackle, first passing yards made. First school dance, with an eighth-grader girl that was dead serious about it. So, my first real date, evidently. Angus and Sax went together dressed as Planet of the Apes, loser of their grade contest (Sax) being the human on a leash. This is Homecoming mind you, not Halloween, so. Not a date. But Angus took mine over, ordered the corsage from Walmart, took me to Goodwill where we found this dope white suit from the sixties. In my size, unbelievable. I’ve grown into my hands and feet by this point, and I’m pushing 6 feet. Thank you, Mattie Kate.” Mattie Kate is the housekeeper who worked for football Coach Wingate, where Demon lived while he was being developed as a potential football star. There are plenty of characters to keep track of, but Kingsolver gives them juicy nicknames (again, a la Dickens) or colorful descriptions so they are easy to track. U-Haul. Fast Forward. Waddles. Mouse. If you know David Copperfield (it’s been decades since I read it) you’ll have a great time with what Kingsolver did with her names. For instance, Uriah Heep becomes Ryan Pyles. The “resourcefulness” of Demon is apparent in his stubborn ability to survive. He’s smarter than he acknowledges, and very observant. In Demon Copperhead, bad things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, too. Many around Demon are not so fortunate and literally or metaphorically drown. You can’t help but think about the failure of our institutions around child welfare, the foster care system, adult welfare, and drug abuse. But Demon finds his talent, develops a passion, and puts it to use. Hello, the power of art. And love. Every great novel, and this is one, is a love story in the end. Demon Copperfield was written with passion for Kingsolver’s very personal reasons. The execution is a thing of beauty—and something we can all admire.

Really my title says it all. This is a compelling and tough read. The painful parts are relentless and so after faithfully ready two thirds of it, I skipped to the last three chapter which offered an ending that was thankfully befitting our beleaguered hero.

This incredible modern retelling of David Copperfield had me hooked from page one. When I first sat down to read it, I laughed out loud, found several passages I had to read aloud to my husband, and wrote down multiple quotes. It was a phenomenal reading experience with wonderful (and despisable) characters and so much heart. Our title character (nickname) is a poor boy from Appalachian Virginia with a dead daddy and an addict mom. At first glimpse, Demon seems to be living a decent life, a country bumpkin-hood, living next door to his best friend and having free reign of the forests. His only concern is to keep his mom on track, i.e. sober and employed. Then Demon gets a step-dad and his life goes to hell from there. The next 500 pages are a hot mess of abuse, foster care, and addiction in the heart of the Oxy epidemic. I picked up this book because so many people have been praising it online and for good reason. When a story has me laughing on one page and in despair the next, I know it’s something special. One example being the hilarity of the following quote: “…Bible stories were a category of superhero comic. Not to be confused by real life.” Then a few chapters later I got blasted with the devastation of, “Sunday school stories are just another type of superhero comic. Counting on Jesus to save the day is no more real than sending up the Batman signal.” It's Demon’s first person narrative that makes this fantastic. I loved his tone, his use of words like Adaptoid, and his philosophy. “If you care, you’ll learn one thing from another.” Demon’s a clever kid, but as his life spirals out of control, things take a dark turn, and so does his outlook. Hope drains from the pages the deeper into his sad story I got. Eventually his bottom line becomes, “Addiction is not for the lazy.” But there are so many redeeming qualities, too, especially the characters that have Damon’s back. I found D.C. reminiscent of Pat Conry and John Irving and Demon reminded me of Francie from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Jude from A Little Life. All books and authors I adore, so that is immensely complimentary. Needless to say, LOVED IT!

When, at the age of 15, I first read David Copperfield, Charles Dickens’ classic novel of the protagonist’s struggle to rise above child poverty in a society seemingly structured to keep him poor, it was the first book that made me tear up at the end, that glorious end with the angelic Agnes ever “pointing upward.” I wasn’t sure that Barbara Kingsolver’s DemonCopperhead could possibly elicit anything like that response from my jaded, seen-it-all-before, read-it-all-before consciousness. Re-imagining the quintessentially British Dickens’ nineteenth-century story as a twenty-first century slice of American Appalachian life? How’s that likely to work? Well, of course, it was likely to bomb spectacularly. But instead, what I found from the book’s very first paragraph was a voice that explodes off the page with both confidence and world-weariness, with stoicism and self-knowledge, with everything the character is going to exhibit in the rest of this blockbuster of a novel. Dickens’ David famously opens with, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” By contrast, Kingsolver’s Copperhead (whose real name is Damon Fields, but he has red hair, so…) opens with, “First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let’s just say out of it.” In this life, you make your own choices, and if you’re going to get anywhere, and your mother is in and out of rehab constantly, you have to do it yourself, Damon tells you at the beginning. You think there’s going to be a hero in your life? Think again. There’s just you, trying to make your way in a world that’s stacked against you. Here’s a voice that, in its tone of genuine down-home rural Americanism sounds a lot more like Huck Finn than anybody in Dickens. Like Huck, he has a memorable way of putting things in his colorful American vernacular: He’s “the Eagle Scout of trailer trash,” he tells us at one point. And I don’t mean to say that you must be familiar with David Copperfield to enjoy Demon Copperhead. You can follow the plot, empathize with the characters and absorb the themes of Kingsolver’s book without ever having heard of Dickens. But it does add something to the overall experience of the book if you know the Copperfield story. In particular, there’s a bit of fun for readers when they can recognize by name a Kingsolvian character intended to parallel a Dickensian one. Thus, when Damon’s abusive stepfather bears the name of “Stoner,” it’s easy to see the connection with David’s equally cruel stepfather, whose name happens to be “Murdstone.” Damon’s kind neighbors, the Peggots, clearly recall David’s friends the Peggottys and Clara Peggoty, David’s early nurse and lifelong friend. Dickens’ charming and narcissistic James Steerforth, who for a while promises to be that “hero of my own life” David looks forward to in his opening sentence, finds his counterpoint in Kingsolver’s Sterling Ford, nicknamed Fast Forward, star quarterback on the high school football team and, for awhile, Damon’s idol. Copperfield’s “child wife” Dora Spenlowe is echoed in Kingsolver’s Dori, and when Damon falls for his needy, childish Dori you don’t have to remember David Copperfield to know that relationship is going to be a disaster, but it helps. Occasionally Kingsolver’s parallel characters are direct mirror images of Dickens’, as in the case of Damon’s grandmother Betsy and her eccentric friend Mr. Dick, who liked flying kites, mirroring David’s great-aunt Betsy and her eccentric friend Mr. Dick who also liked flying kites. Sometimes there’s more of a difference: Damon’s short-term foster father Mr. McCobb has a few things in common with David’s Mr. Micawber, lack of steady employment and perpetual new schemes to get rich among them, but Micawber is a well-meaning screwup, while McCobb is just trying to take advantage of the system. And Dickens’ Uriah Heep is a far more insidious villain than Kingsolver’s assistant coach U-Haul Pyles, whose downfall is far less precipitous than Heep’s in Dickens. And then there is “Angus” Winfield, daughter of the high school football coach and Damon’s foster-sister during the best and worst years of his life, who clearly parallels David’s guardian angel, Agnes Wickfield, and who you know from the first is going to be a major influence in Damon’s life. Of course, knowing Dickens gives you an idea of the role these characters are going to play in the story. But the plot of Demon Copperhead is not therefore predictable, as Kingsolver translates these characters’ motivations and effects on the protagonist into a completely different milieu of time and place. Ultimately, what’s important about the influence of Dickens on Kingsolver’s book is not the superficial correspondences of plot or character, but rather their very significant agreement in terms of theme and authorial intent. In an afterword to her novel, Kingsolver writes, “I’m grateful to Charles Dickens for writing David Copperfield, his impassioned critique of institutional poverty and its damaging effects on children in his society. Those problems are still with us. In adapting his novel to my own place and time, working for years with his outrage, inventiveness, and empathy at my elbow, I’ve come to think of him as my genius friend.” It is precisely those social evils that Kingsolver has directly in her sites in this novel: The institutional poverty of former coal-mining areas of her native Appalachia; the effects of that poverty on children, especially children whose parents have been victims of that poverty and are dead or imprisoned. She attacks the ineptitude and bureaucracy of child welfare services, the abuse of the system of foster care that allows people like Damon’s foster parents to take children solely for the sake of taking the monthly support money, or for gaining slave labor like the tobacco farmer who first fosters Damon. She attacks a justice system that will accept the testimony of an abusive stepfather rather than the word of the abused child. But more than anything else she attacks the opioid crisis. Damon, who has a brief period when it seems he may escape the cesspool of his luckless life through success on the gridiron as a high school football star, has a terrible knee injury for which he is prescribed opioid pain relievers to which he becomes hopelessly addicted, and Kingsolver’s indictment of the doctors, salesmen, druggists, and especially the Sackler-owned Purdue Pharma are is merciless in the novel. It truly seems like there is no way out for Damon—but as David Copperfield had a talent in writing that finally helped pull him out of poverty, the fact that Damon has a talent for drawing—all he has left after football—does give him a ray of hope. I won’t spoil the end by telling you whether he’s able to use it. Thus Kingsolver is not simply the heir of Dickens in recasting his most personal novel; she is more importantly the spiritual heir of Dickens’ novel of social criticism, something you don’t see much of any more. Where is Dickens today? Where are the Zolas? The Sinclair Lewises? The John Steinbecks? Gone. But we’ve still got Barbara Kingsolver.

You all have seen the same reviews. “It’s the best!” “I couldn’t put it down.” No. No no and no. Demon Copperhead was a life changing and mind altering experience. I have never read a book so astounding, genius-ly written and beautiful. When I got towards the end I kept stopping myself so it wouldn’t end, and I would have to go without living in Demon’s world. This character was touching, genuine, heartfelt, edgy and raw. I can only hope that I’ll encounter another novel as good as Demon Copperhead in the future, but I have my doubts. This deserves the Pulitzer Prize x2. I will remember this novel and character for years to come!

"Demon Copperhead" kept and kept on appearing in my "suggested for you" on Kindle, and each time, I kept thinking "Ugh, not so much, I just want something to read, but not sure if I really feel like turning on my thinking cap for Barbara Kingsolver." Finally, largely out of self-defense as I was so tired of seeing it, I caved and got the book. When I look back on all that I have read this year, or even over the past couple to few years, I can't imagine not having read it. This book has been called a creative retelling of "David Copperfield." As to that, I will begin by saying not "I was born," but something far more provocative: I don't like Dickens. Sorry, I don't, despite having taken (or possibly because of having taken) an entire Senior English Seminar on his works in college. In that semester-long class, I was exposed to most of everything he'd written, including "David Copperfield," and did what I had to do to participate in classroom discussion and achieve a grade. Shortly after that, I largely forgot "David Copperfield" and its characters or situations, so I read "Demon Copperhead" cover-to-cover without recognizing the parallels. It wasn't until after I finished the book and took a quick trip to Wikipedia that I saw how creatively these were done, from plot events to character names, and was impressed. (And for those reviewers who have said this is "plagiarism," no, a retelling of an existing story is not plagiarism.) Rather than Dickens' coal-choked, vice-ridden, poverty-stricken 19th century London, the setting has been transported here to Appalachian Virginia, more or less in the present day. The titular character's surroundings are beautifully done, as Kingsolver's descriptions always are, and the reader is immediately immersed in his life's adventures and misadventures, from young childhood to young adulthood. I found the narrative voice of his childhood to be particularly effective. A child's perceptions of his world, however intuitive, are often incorrect or entirely made up based on emotions such as love or fear. Child Demon's voice felt very believable to me (and many times was cause for a chuckle, a chuckle not being easy to come by in a story with as many dark themes as this one has). From there, it is interesting to read a gifted writer changing the narrative voice as the character gets older. As always, always, always (and my favorite attribute of Barbara Kingsolver's writing), the descriptions of nature are wonderful and meticulously detailed, especially as seen through the perception of a child. (In one example, the character Maggot is observed by Demon to be holding a tiny, tiny grasshopper, so small it seemed to have come from "a planet of smaller things.") In being with Demon from childhood into young adulthood, we see a character who goes from fearing Boogeymen which live largely in his imagination to confronting Boogeymen which are real -- in this case poverty, the flaws of the foster care system, the manipulation of the people of this region by big business and government, and the horrors of the opioid crisis. I came across a number of reviews from readers who felt the depiction of the latter was one-sided and had very strong opinions about it -- I'm not here to debate that -- or that the themes of the book were too heavy-handed. And granted, while many (self included) believe that some of Barbara's Kingsolver's books are too heavy-handed in terms of social or ecological agendas, I felt this was much more subtle in "Demon Copperhead" and did not find the themes overbearing at all -- possibly because the reader is experiencing things through the eyes of a very well-developed character, rather than through the words or actions of less-developed characters in some of her other books where characters feel like devices and not people. Some say Dickens beat readers over the head with themes, too. Much as he may not be my favorite writer, however, I feel that he did a good enough job of creating a world and characters that he didn't have to beat anyone over the head with anything. I feel Kingsolver has achieved that here, too. Understanding the ugliness of a society as perceived by a believable character -- and feeling sad, appalled, ashamed, what-have-you -- is not the same as being hit over the head by something. There's some dark, dark stuff here, so fair warning: readers who aren't prepared for that had best pick up another selection. And if this isn't your cup of tea, please do that rather than drag down reviews of this one with expressions of shock about the "trash" herein. Things like sex, death by OD, people shooting up, etc., are part of this story. As others have said, however, I am flabbergasted by the fact that Amazon's age suggestion for this book is "ages 9 and up." While there may be 9-year-olds at a reading level sufficient to comprehend the words, this book is *not* kid stuff. While a 70% five-star rating is a suggestion of the widespread appreciation for "Demon Copperhead," there are, as always, other percentages of readers who liked it less or even hated it (which is the beauty of the right to freely express an opinion, or to admit that something is simply not to one's taste). If I had a nickel for every review that said this was a horrible book or a suggestion that Kingsolver has fallen off her game and ended by saying "Go read 'The Poisonwood Bible'," I'd be a rich reader indeed. I'll end by saying I *did* "go read 'The Poisonwood Bible'." (Twice, actually, well before reading this one.) And this reader liked "Demon Copperhead" way better.

Most readers will be aware that Demon Copperhead is based on the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. In fact, Kingsolver's novel mirrors the storyline of Dickens closely enough that readers will recognize many of the similarly named characters and predict where the plot will head next. In spite of this homage to Dickens, Kingsolver manages to create a fresh and original work of fiction, told in the first person by Demon Copperhead, who relates his coming-of-age adventures in the forgotten Lee County, Virginia, Appalachian territory. For all the rural beauty of Demon's world, it is full of despair, severe drug addiction, domestic abuse and violence (readers with low tolerance may not enjoy this novel). Lee County was once supported by the coal mining industry, but was then abandoned by that industry as people lost jobs to technology and corporate change, and their health from exposure to the hazards of the industry. With little hope and little emphasis on education, the people in Demon's world must navigate their way through the obstacles of violence and addiction to survive another day. Some will succeed in creating stable lives and doing their best to lift those around them, and others will fail to pull themselves free. Demon witnesses and experiences all aspects of life in this world, both highs and lows, kindnesses and violations, love and manipulation, riches and poverty, successful achievements and self-hatred. Through his authentic, raw Appalachian-tinged voice, Demon lets the reader observe this world through his commentary and experience it through his feelings. It is an intense and relentless novel, at times uncomfortable. Kingsolver deserves the Pulitzer Prize for this work because she manages to shine a glaring spotlight on some of the most forgotten people in our country, from the inside. By taking what could be a seemingly dated Victorian story that may feel disconnected from our experience, and transposing it into contemporary Virginia, she demonstrates that the mechanisms that create institutional poverty and shackle people trying to improve their lot in life are still at work; for all our progress, some things have not changed. A note about the audiobook: Charlie Thurston does an admirable job conveying the hopes, fears and snark of a down-on-his-luck boy with his Appalachian twang, and helped keep the momentum going throughout the novel.

One of my favourite books of the past decade. It’s a tough read in parts, dysfunctional families and State, but in very expressive language. There are moments of laughter that transcend descriptions of brutality and abuse. I learned more about tobacco farming than I would ever expect. There is room for hope and redemption, loved the constancy of “Angus”.

There is a good French book about a red hair boy : Poil de Carotte by Jules Renard. Some people dislike read hair women : they say they are witches or they smell. It' s pure racism. Being a red hair orphan must be hard to live. American foster care looks neither worse nor better than French foster care. Some foster care children manage to make a success of their life though.

I want to finish reading but I only received four chapters on this device.

One of the best books I've ever read, it's clear why it won a Pulitzer, don't think I'll ever be able to forget demon.

Gets you inside another person’s head. The head of someone fighting addiction. Well written and sure to evoke empathy. Lots about the shenanigans of the pharmaceutical industry to make money at the expense of communities. Revealing and informative.