Demon Copperhead: A Novel Hardcover – October 18, 2022

Demon Copperhead. Holy moley, what a book. It's one of those books I made myself put down just because I didn't want to finish it too soon. At the same time, it's one I probably wouldn't have read at all, except that a friend recommended it, based on the fact that one of my own writing projects is dealing with some of the same themes. That, plus its connection to David Copperfield and the almost lyrical prose of the free sample chapters, convinced me to pay the exorbitant-for-Kindle price of the whole book.Well, I'm glad I did. Demon Copperhead is one of those books that gets in your head and stays stuck there until you finish and even afterward. Your pages turn a mile a minute because not only do you want the characters to be okay, you want to know what happens. You want to see Demon and his compatriots either triumph over their hardships or, if they choose a path that won't end there, at least get to an ending that makes sense and leaves a logical and lasting impression. Which in both cases, oh boy, do they. These characters don't just feel like real people, they are real. I know I say that a lot, but man! I was not one of them; I was your classic straight-A, straight edge student who went home to stable parents every night. But I knew these kids existed. I lived (still live) in a town with problems and stories similar to Lee County's. I didn't have the same problems or story as Demon, but straight A's and straight edge or not, I had my own reasons for being, let's say, in the "orphan class" of my circle. Like Demon, I spent a lot of years feeling like I had a lot of shine, but if it came off, people would see coal underneath and be repulsed.Beyond that, Barbara Kingsolver just plain nailed these characters, these settings, this life story of her modern, Appalachian David Copperfield. I not only felt for, but felt with and not only traveled with, but traveled inside, Demon all the way from his home next door to the Peggott's, to Creaky's farm, to the McCobb's, to Coach Winfield's and everywhere in between. I can't say every place and character was one I grew to love. I mean, come on, some of these people are downright cruel or downright creeps. But, they were three-dimensional and I could at least understand them. And even the situations and scenes at which I cringed, left an impression on me. Special mention goes to:-The Squadron at Creaky Farm. Every kid needs a friend like Tommy, I don't care who or how old you are. And as dysfunctional as the Squadron was, I got behind the brotherhood. I've written situations and characters like that, not as well as Barbara has, I'll grant you. The commitment to survival, the heart, the unbroken spirits, will do something to you.-Demon's developing drawing talent and cartoons. I loved seeing those, from his first superhero drawings all the way up to the Red Neck comic strip. I kept thinking, how would he draw me? And I loved how Barbara gave this resilient, rough-edged character an artistic, soft side without making him a stereotypical beta male or heaven forbid, what folks in Appalachia might think of as a sissy.-Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Annie, of course. Not just because they're "good teachers trying to save the poor foster kid," either, which I've seen done and done poorly. No, you get the sense they're learning and growing right alongside Demon, making their own mistakes and learning how to save up and give away their own juice. Plus, I absolutely loved Mr. Armstrong's way of showing his students their history and how it has contributed to their current poverty, educational lack, drug-related temptations, "and etc."-Angus Winfield, oh my gosh, I just love her to bits. She is the coolest and least stereotypical high school student you'd ever want to meet. If we were in high school together, we might've blown each other off, but I'd like to think we could've been friends. Maybe we would've reluctantly partnered for one of those stupid Antarctica projects and laughed over the fact that Bettina Cook thought penguins lived with Santa at the North Pole.Aside from settings and characters, Barbara also nailed her themes. As mentioned, the one that sticks with me the most is the history, present situation, and future outlook for the kids of Appalachia, especially considering the current prescription drug situation. Now again, I was not one of those kids and am not one of those adults. But, having lived with cerebral palsy from birth, having gotten nothing but the runaround and the "we give up, you're too 'high-functioning'" from those who should've fallen all over themselves to help--yeah, I got Demon's frustrations, from a different place. It's no picnic when over 90% of your income comes from a government check--and that's *with* four-year college, Aunt June. So yeah, I was with Mr. Armstrong, and Ms. Annie, and Angus. Wake up, stupid school board, napping principal, whoever. Get off your butt and give these kids a future, even if it has to start with one little academic team. Wake up, medical system, one kid's overdosed mom oughta be enough to make you think, what's going on with these prescription drugs? Wake up, social services, what part of filthy farmhouse, slave labor, and flat broke family with four kids under seven don't you *get?*The other themes, especially resilience, jump off the page, too. I rooted for Demon the whole time because, as Mr. Armstrong says, he is the driver. He walked out of the major car wreck, not once, but many times. Sometimes I cringed at his naivete, as with the original David Copperfield, especially when it came to Emmy and particularly Dori (who I felt sorry for, but my Lord)! But pair that resilience with the darker side of the human condition, such as which lives get celebrated and which lives just get the casket lid closed on them, and it shines all the brighter.Several scenes "popped" all over the book, so many it would take too much time to enumerate them all. And some I can't tell you about without spoiling the ending, although the ending is that little bit of hope and happiness I hung on for. And you *do* have to hang on, through a lot. One reason I took a star is sheer length. This thing is a doorstop. Now, that's not a problem on its own. Barbara Kingsolver is kinda known for doorstops. But it doesn't work as well here as I've seen her work with it, because what you have with this book is Demon's entire, literal life story. For me personally, there were a few times where I asked myself, "Do I really need all this?" And there were times where Demon seemed to relive versions of the same kind of experience. I felt like, "Okay, I've seen this once and it was powerful enough that I think we can move on."I also took a star because, as much as I loved all these characters, sometimes they crowded the stage. Sometimes there'd be characters in a scene or an arc who I didn't think needed to be there. I completely understood Barbara's desire to make Lee County one of those places where you keep coming back and you keep running into people you knew and they in turn touch your life again. It happens, I should know. But truth is stranger than fiction, and in fiction, all these people popping in and out just cramps the book's style. Some characters, like Tommy and Fast Forward, it works for. Others it's like, "Okay, move along."Perhaps this is why I thought a few threads weren't developed at the pace they should've been. For instance, Fast Forward is a monster and I'm totally behind that. And you do see hints of his true character throughout the novel, like at Creaky Farm. But he's in and out of the story so much that the actual revelation of how deep Fast Forward's problems go--well, it works, but it also feels a bit out of left field. The same is true for Betsy's thread, in that yeah, I buy Demon having a grandma he doesn't meet until he's twelve, and I buy her not wanting to be in his life. But then, as Angus says, her desire to basically take over makes no sense.Finally, yes. I did take off points for language. That's not because I can't "handle" it. I'm an adult, for goodness' sakes. But the near-constant F-bombs just got on my nerves after a while because, just, really? And as you might know, the misuse of Jesus' name is a very personal pet peeve. Now, I'm sure Jesus Himself had to tell His disciples to clean up their language now and again, especially Peter. And it's my personal theory that our beloved St. Paul had a potty mouth, at least to a point. But it does wear on you. So, not a major issue for adult readers, but if it's not your thing, caveat emptor. And yeah, I'd say don't give this one to your teen, it's got some pretty heavy depictions of addiction in it, as well as a couple of sex scenes I freely admit I skimmed.All that aside though, I don't regret spending a minute with Demon Copperhead. He is a perfect modern David Copperfield, he got me thinking, and in a weird way, yeah, the book blessed me. It inspired me to keep writing. And I'm willing to bet it will stir something new and unique inside you, too. Mature readers, grab a copy and savor. There's redemption to be had if you're looking.

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.

About two thirds of the way through Demon Copperhead (real name Damon Fields), the eponymous central character observes, (I paraphrase) that Charles Dickens, despite being dead, old, and foreign, truly understood the fate over orphans, mistreated by people who cared nothing for them, to the extent that one could imagine he was “from round here”.That encapsulates Barbara Kingsolver’s retelling of David Copperfield, transposed to the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. The conservative novelist Anthony Trollope sneeringly referred to Dickens as “The Social Reformer”. Likewise Kingsolver will undoubtedly be dismissed as “woke” or “politically correct”.However, Dickens, despite the barbs of the lesser novelist, justifiably attacked genuine societal ills, and likewise Kingsolver takes aim at some deserving targets and attacks them with real energy. At the heart of both works is an anger at childhood poverty, the consequent exploitation, and the inadequacy of society’s response. Kingsolver also adds the disenfranchisement of rural communities and the criminal over selling of painkillers by big-pharma.While there are inevitably differences (Demon’s storytelling talent is graphical rather than verbal, and I don’t recall David wrecking his knee by playing American football), Kingsolver parallels Dickens’ masterpiece fairly closely, particularly in her choice of characters. David’s charismatic flawed friend here becomes Sterling Ford, whom Demon meets while being employed as a virtual slave by a farmer nicknamed Creaky. Betsy Woodall becomes his estranged grandmother rather than his great aunt. He is mentored by a kind-hearted art teacher Ms Annie. The two women in his life are the childlike Dori, and the tomboyish Angus.Kingsolver tells a good story and her attacks on social injustice are wholly justified. However, this is not a book I could love, and the problems I have with it are closely interlinked. At the heart of this is that the book is simply too long. I enjoyed (if that is the right word) something like the first half, and the final 50 pages or so really pick up, but there were some sections in the heart of the book where it felt like wading through quicksand, exerting a great deal of energy without getting very far. In some ways that could in itself be viewed as a metaphor for the journey of Demon’s life, but clever structure doesn’t necessarily make for an engaging story.The second aspect of the problem is the use to which the author puts the extra length, namely to pour extra misery on to Demon’s head. Three works I struggle to fully appreciate are Antony and Cleopatra, Death of a Salesman and Shuggie Bain, the reason being that all reach a point where the misery goes on for so long , with no light to balance the shade, that I find myself becoming disengaged. This strays down that same path.In comparing the bildungsromans of Dickens and Kingsolver, the big difference is light and shade. Dickens brings a wit and lightness of touch, where the light serves as a contrast to the darkness. Kingsolver does not provide that illumination. Even with the excess length, she barely finds time to shine the light at the end of Demon’s tunnel. Nowhere is the excess darkness shown better than in the case of the McCobbs, who simply add more misery to Demon’s life, compared to the Micawbers who, though tragic, also provide a new and different note to the story.I have been quite harsh on what I see as the flaws of this novel, but ultimately I did find it a worthwhile read, if you can just find your way, like Demon, through the darkness.

This book had been on my list to read for a while so I was delighted when it was chosen as my latest book club pick. I have a love/hate relationship with books by this author but I was hoping that I would agree with all the positive reviews this novel had received.It is 546 pages split into 64, numbered, chapters. It's a brick of a book and the font is small.We looked at the first page in our book club group and I was hooked - I love the first person narrative which is observing itself in an unjudgmental way.Demon has a wonderful voice - full of life with an experience that is far beyond his years. Despite this he remains completely authentic. This is a fantastic portrayal of a boy in poverty.After a few chapters I decided to take a peek at a summary of David Copperfield, a story I didn't know at all. It became immediately clear that Barbara Kingsolver has stayed very close to the original so I didn't read much of the Charles Dickens plot because I wanted to make the most of the Demon story. Its a great way to update a story and I love the slight adaptation of the original names.I read this book slowly which is often a bad sign but it wasn't the case here. Every sentence is crafted beautifully and I wanted to appreciate it as much as I could. Many of the sentences made me smile with how well they were written.Demon is an innocent who has seen too much. Most importantly he is a detailed observer with the ability to describe everything he sees whilst also allowing the reader to complete the story with their own imaginations. As a reader, you have to work at this story which makes it joyous to read.This is entertaining writing and any reader will love Demon but I struggled at times with the relentlessness of the poverty and his bad luck in the world. Whenever you think he has hit rock bottom, something comes along to make it worse, when there is a possibility of some good fortune, he often messes it up and when life is good then you expect it won't last for long.There are some sections that go on too long and I suspect her editor could have been more active. The drug abuse section, in particular, is hugely detailed and reinforces it's message many times - we get the idea that drug companies are bad!!Without exception the characters are amazing - I could visualise them all with every single awful detail.I persevered through the dip about 2/3 through as Demon struggled with his own demons and as glad did. The end of a book is always hard for an author but BK followed a lead from Mr Dickens and managed to produce a perfect conclusion.

I’ve never read “David Copperfield,” which this Pulitzer-winning novel is based on, but I would be interested to now.Barbara Kingsolver is a prolific writer and most famous for “The Poisonwood Bible,” and to date, I have not read her because her novels tend to be rather hefty, physically. “Demon Copperhead” is no exception, but I am glad I took the plunge - reading it on a Kindle has its advantages, one of which is not having to tote a huge volume around with you.The story is a kind of “coming-of-age” tale of the titular character, whose nickname partly came about because of his heritage and head of red hair, and later on in high school, due to his prowess on the football field.At age 11, Damon/Demon Fields has already been failed by his single mother, a substance abuser, who had him as a teen, and would not have survived if it had not been for his neighbours, the Pegs.A study in poverty, the rest of the novel traces Damon’s life up to his late teens, as he is forced to grow up too quickly as he his shunted from one inadequate foster home to another.When he thinks he has met the love of his life, and finally a place where he feels his orphan status is eclipsed by his popularity, it all comes crashing down, and his downward spiral is hard to read. His addiction to drugs, fuelled by a sports injury, and exacerbated by poor influences threaten to finish him off for good.Kingsolver handles her material well, and gets under the skin of a boy who is bewildered by the cruelty of the world, not just from the obvious quarters, but when kindness is offered, and then retracted. That as much as people want to help, your circumstances can be too overwhelming for them, even when they mean well.The substance abuse is difficult to stomach literally, but Kingsolver documents these aspects of the book very convincingly and unflinchingly. She offers no sentimentality, but presents the brutality of addiction as it is.On the whole, the tale absorbs, but it is rather long, and I felt the plot petering out and sustained longer than it should after a climactic chain of events. Some characters come to life, such as the godawful U-Haul, who still gives me a shiver when I think of him, or the kind Mr and Mrs Peg, but strangely, Damon’s childhood friend, Maggot, who seem poised to play a bigger role, never gets fully fleshed out, beyond his penchant for Goth makeup and clothes as a sign of his left-of-centredness.Nonetheless, Kingsolver writes lyrically, and I look forward to enjoying more of her back catalogue.

As a polemic on the ways of Big Pharma and the US healthcare and welfare systems, this is great. As a work of literature, it’s less successful. It’s over long, quite repetitive, with somewhat boring descriptions of frequent drug use and American football. I found my self skimming some passages with no effect on my understanding of the story. Dickens had the excuse that he was pretty much paid by the word, but this novel could have done with some ruthless editing. Having said that, Kingsolver has created memorable and convincing characters. By the half way point, I was gripped and turning the pages eagerly to find out how Demon’s story would end.

A reimagining of Dickens' David Copperfield, this is the story of Damon Fields, aka, Demon Copperhead, a young boy growing up in the mountains of Southern Appalachia, and charting his journey into adulthood. Born to a teen-aged single mother battling a drug habit, Demon is orphaned at a young age, forced to face the hardships of a broken foster care system. Later, he finally finds a home with Coach Winfield and his daughter Angus, briefly enjoying stardom on the football pitch, only to suffer a devastating injury. From there, Demon finds himself on a downward spiral, battling addiction issues himself, however, through all the adversities, Demon never loses the fighting spirit and resilience he was born with.My first read from Barbara Kingsolver, and easily my favourite read of the year so far, though not always an easy read, given the oftentimes depressing subject matter. Yet, no matter how bleak and harrowing the story got, ultimately the message was one of triumph and hope, and I think that always shone through.Demon, as the central character, is a joy. I simply loved his voice, and thought Kingsolver did a remarkable job of so wonderfully capturing the inner thoughts and feelings of a young boy/teenager. He narrates his story with a darkly sardonic sense of humour, that also helps keep the tone of the story entertaining no matter what he is enduring. Demon has a zest for life that simply cannot be stamped out, even at his lowest ebb, and whilst at times the choices he makes are questionable, I was rooting for him all the way. His heart was always in the right place, such that it was impossible not to like him.I've never actually read David Copperfield, but am familiar with the story though various television and movie adaptations over the years. I don't think you necessarily have to be familiar with the story, in order to enjoy this, but if you are, then I think you'll likely appreciate all the nods, and how cleverly Kingsolver takes Dickens' story and characters and translates them in this modern day setting. I did also find it rather thought-provoking, how so many of the social issues that Dickens was writing about, such as poverty, child labour and the bleak life of an orphan, are still so relevant today. Here, the orphanages are replaced instead by a broken foster care system that is no less harrowing.Another important issue covered in the story is drug abuse, Kingsolver going into a fair amount of detail on the heroin epidemic that affected these parts and destroyed so many lives and communities, and the role the pharmaceutical industry played in this. Kinsgsolver's love for her native Appalachia was clear to see and infused throughout the story, be it in Demon's love for the nature around him, or in the interesting history of the area that she weaves into the story. Its there in the commentary on how rural folk are so often misrepresented, and in Demon's comic strips and later graphic novel that try to hit back and give his people a voice. Yes, perhaps at times her social commentary could seem a little forced, however, I appreciated the passion behind it nevertheless.The novel is certainly lengthy, however, I never found myself losing attention. Whilst Demon owned my heart from very early on, there were a whole host of characters here to love, and some to love to hate. Some of my favorites included Angus, Tommy, and Aunt June, though the Peggotts as a whole family were a lovable bunch.Overall, this was a masterful reworking of a classic, and yet also entirely Kingsolver's own. A story that is as likely to have you laughing as it is crying; I found this an incredibly raw and moving read, with a big-hearted hero who will stay with me for a long time.