DEMON COPPERHEAD

by Barbara Kingsolver

It’s always thrilling when I hear that Barbara Kingsolver has written a new book.  She has authored some of the best books I’ve read over the past several years: The Poisonwood Bible; Unsheltered; Flight Behavior; and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to name a few.  In Demon Copperhead, Kingsolver reimagines Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield and sets her story in modern-day Appalachia.  Her protagonist, like Dickens’, is left to navigate a society where children are powerless, unseen and must fight for survival.

Demon Copperfield may have been created 180 years after David Copperfield, but as Kingsolver spins her compelling and complex tale, the reader comes to realize that when it comes to poor people, especially children, not much has changed.  Whether it is today’s drug ravaged Appalachia or Dickens’ London with its institutional poverty, children are victims who must overcome huge obstacles in order to survive.  Kingsolver is a master storyteller who deftly weaves her tale about Demon Copperhead, who is born to an unwed, teenaged, drug-addicted mother and quickly finds himself navigating the foster care system.  From harvesting tobacco to shoveling trash behind a meth lab, Demon must rely on his own ingenuity and fortitude if he has any chance of pulling himself out of this vicious cycle of poverty and drug addiction.

Demon Copperhead is a gorgeous book, filled with unforgettable characters. Kingsolver immerses you in their lives and you find yourself rooting for them and hoping that they will succeed and escape their lives, where they have so much stacked against them.  Demon Copperhead is sure to become a modern classic and I recommend you read it as soon as possible. (Liz)