Demon Copperhead

What hasn't been said about this wonderful novel? It's a modern day David Copperfield with lots of great characters set in Appalachia during the opioid crisis. Your heart breaks for orphan Demon Copperhead and his friends as they navigate their way through life, hindered and abused by the so-called grown ups around them while they try to rise above both the poverty of their birth and expectations. It's made all the more special because the author stayed at Dickens' home Bleak House in Broadstairs, Kent, where he wrote David Copperfield and where 'she felt the presence of Dickens' outrage' 'urging… show more.

It’s hard for me to say that an author has somehow improved upon Charles Dickens, but I must admit that I liked Demon Copperhead better than David Copperfield. I was stunned by Kingsolver’s reweaving of Dickens’s story, both in clever plot elements and detail. The book gave me a sense of what it must be like for a child utterly trapped within an impoverished world of dysfunctional adults and systems. Although I know about addiction, this book helped me go beyond knowing. It helped me imagine. Kingsolver handles pacing and plot like a great musician handles a long complicated piece… show more.

This might as well be a documentary--it's that real. The characters, the issues and the settings are compelling and accurate. The story is gripping and the writing is over-the-top good. Couldn't stop listening.

At times, it is very depressing as the reality of Appalachian poverty hits you between the eyes. You can't stop rooting for Demon as he struggles caught in the flash flood of consequences caused by drugs and incarceration.

In Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver's mastery is on full display. Pulled straight from an modern Appalachian hollow, this book hit all the right notes. Demon could have been any number of young men I've known, and was just as real on the page as they were in life, and death. Kingsolver takes on the opioid crisis and rural disaffection with unflinching grace and a thorough understanding, in the process telling a damn good story. Though laid over the bones of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, this book does not at all feel derivative. It stands on its own, like Demon himself.

It seems to me to be absolutely critical for all Americans to know more about the Demon Copperheads of this world, and the world they live in. This book delivered immersion into that world and thus the opportunity to begin to better understand. It is also phenomenally well-written!

Kingsolver creates a heartbreaking and often amusing work of fiction that feels so real you think you are reading a biography. Through Demon’s voice the reader falls into his world. The poignant story explores life’s choices and the harsh consequences of a single mistake or a series of tiny blunders. In Demon the reader finds a friend worth rooting for surrounded by a compelling cast of supporting characters.

Because of Demon. _Such_ a compelling voice and character. You are with him every step, in awe of his resilience, aching for his vulnerability, desperate for him at last to see the ocean.

Barbara Kingsolver is a fantastic writer and never shies away from difficult themes. I love the harsh reality of her work, although it makes me wish the world was a better place.

I'm late to the Demon Copperhead game, but now I understand the hype. I'm floored by how Kingsolver immerses us so fully into Demon's voice and his world. It offered me an emotionally charged glimpse into a world that I (and many people) did not previously understand, which I think is the ultimate work of fiction - to create empathy.