Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Published: October 18, 2022 by Harper
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Synopsis:
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is 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. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon 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.
Rating:
Review:
“The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between…”
This is one of the most acclaimed books I’ve read this year. By and large it seems like everyone loves it and finds it lifechanging. I have heard it compared to Charles Dickens, which is quite high praise. And based on the story it is a re-telling of sorts of David Copperfield. I picked it up based on that acclaim so I would say that my hopes were relatively high.
Our story was told to us in first person narrative and with an episodic nature. Demon is telling us the story of his life at various points that we jump into as he narrates. He is a young man who was born poor in the Appalachian Mountains to a teenage mother with a history of substance abuse. It is very clear to be that Kingsolver was attempting to write the “Next Great American Novel” here. But unfortunately it just wasn’t my jam.
On his own Demon is a fine character. I enjoyed his narration and his voice. The biggest problem is that everything he’s telling us is just so…..stereotypical. If you can name a cliche or stereotype about Appalachia, it’s in this book. Demon struggles with neglect only to be in an abusive foster system, then orphaned, then abused and then by a stroke of luck he becomes the local football star. Cliche and overworked so far.
Then, wouldn’t you know it, he blows out a knee. And then falls into the addiction cycle himself. And then eventually pulls himself out and finds a happy ending.
A close match to the David Copperfield story but with one glaring omission. Along the tragic story in Copperfield, Dickens gives us rays of hope. There are positive relationships in that book. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel if you will. Kingsolver took all of those positive relationships and just dragged them through the stereotypical mud of Appalachia. Everyone gets a raw deal. No one gets to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just chapter after chapter of stereotypical suffering.
Then randomly, the author will try to add in a little bit of modern thinking, which was jarring and didn’t match the timeframe of the book. For example the Black English teacher in the middle of the Holler explaining in the 90s about the Black empowerment movement by changing the spelling from “black” to “Black.” Nope, that would not happen in that time period or in that place. Plus all of the people who seem to have keen insight into the dangers of opiate drugs, which is completely at odds with the time period of the book. The opiate epidemic was just getting into the swing of things and pharmaceutical companies were spending billions trying to sell these drugs to more and more people. Medicine had an adage that no patient should ever have to endure pain! But here, people are wary of opiates in a very modern way that didn’t exist back then.
If you wish to read 550+ pages of opiate ranting and stereotypes about Appalachia, dive right in. Otherwise I suggest giving this one a miss.