Demon Copperhead | Barbara Kingsolver

~ This Reading Life

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 done by me, my mother being let’s just say out of it.

Writing a book based on another story is always a little risky. Over the years I have read and watched many modern adaptations of Jane Austen in particular, but also Shakespeare, the Brontes and Dickens. When your starting point is based on such a strong foundation, as long as the writing is half-way decent, the rest can follow along nicely enough. But not always; I suspect we could all write a post about the shockers.

However every now and again, an adaptation comes along that blows your sock off. A reimaging that redefines the genre, sets the bar that little bit higher, or modernises the story in an imaginative, meaningful way.

In the past though, I have not got on with Barbara Kingsolver at all; so I had very strong doubts about Demon Copperhead even before I opened up the cover. I’ve attempted several of her books but have never got past page two. When Demon Copperhead was assigned as our September book group choice, I actually groaned. How could Kingsolver possibly better Charles Dickens and his masterpiece David Copperfield – a much-loved book from my early twenties that broke my heart and put it back together again?

Let me (and Demon) assure you – she does!

Likewise the Charles Dickens one, seriously old guy, dead and a foreigner, but Christ Jesus did he get the picture on kids and orphans getting screwed over and nobody giving a rat’s ass. You’d think he was from around here.

Kingsolver absolutely dazzles!

She soars to great heights as her story takes us away from the poverty stricken slums of Dickensian London into the hillybilly hinterlands of Appalachia where institutional and intergenerational poverty rules. How does a young boy have any chance of becoming a good man in a cruel world with very little guidance, in any era? Kingsolver takes us into Demon’s world of grinding poverty, foster care homes, drugs, alcohol and abusive adults. She shows us how easy it is for these kids to fall through the cracks of every system designed to rescue them, a system where the only salvation or redemption is yourself? Or as Kingsolver declares, ‘what matters in a story is the heart of its hero.‘

In the end it comes down to individual personality and luck.

The luck of finding a good friend at the right time, a switched on teacher who makes a difference for a while, a neighbour who takes an interest. You also need to be the kind of person who can see this for the opportunity it is. And you need some luck.

I got up every day thinking the sun was out there shining, and it could just as well shine on me as any other human person.

Kind, good-hearted people do exist in every walk of life. They may not be able to save you or protect you, but they can heal your broken heart if you let them. Demon was one of those people, as was David before him.

Lee County, Virginia was not a place I knew much about before reading Demon Copperhead. Looking at a map I discovered that a state I thought of as coastal, had a skinny triangular arm that went west into the mountains, hemmed in by borders with North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Viginia. This is where Demon was born and raised, ‘Lee County being a place where you keep on living the life you were assigned.’

The opioid crisis that runs as a thread through the entire book, began in the 1990’s just after the fictional birth of Demon. His story encapsulates what Wikipedia* called a ‘uniquely American problem [where] the structure of the US healthcare system, in which people not qualifying for government programs are required to obtain private insurance, favors prescribing drugs over more expensive therapies.‘

Opioid overprescribing and misuse is still a problem today with about ‘80 percent of the global pharmaceutical opioid supply [being] consumed in the United States‘ only. However Demon’s story ends in 2004 around the time of Ronald Reagan’s death and funeral, where we the reader understands more about this crisis than he does.

As with the Dickens version of the story, there were times I had to put Demon Copperhead aside. So much bad luck and so much miserableness and meanness are not easy to witness.

During these down times, as can often happen, a couple of reading synchronicities occurred. In The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff I quickly realised that we were back in Virginia with the original English pilgrim-colonisers struggling to survive in Jamestown. It made me wonder if ‘struggling to survive’ is something that Virginiains have been doing since 1610.

I also started (but did not finish) The MoDERN (2023) by Anna Kate Blair where her protagonist Sophia is living in New York and working at the MoMA. Shortly after becoming engaged, her fiancée takes off for several months to hike the Appalachian Trail, taking him for a while into the heart of Demon’s world.

Devil’s Bathtub is an Appalachian landmark very personal too Demon. I loved the section near the end where Demon visits the falls after escaping the crush of the city and runs into a family from Australia, ‘which amazed me. People from the other side of the planet coming here.’

Devil’s Bathtub, Virginia

We have a running joke that says it doesn’t matter where in the world you go; the highest peak, the lowest valley, the most remote part of any country, you will find an Aussie there! Even swimming in the freezing cold water of a little-known mountain pool.

Epigraph: Charles Dickens | David Copperfield (1850)

It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.

David Copperfield was published as a serial from the 1st May 1849 to 1st November 1850 as The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger, of Blunderstone Rookery with illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”). The complete book was then published at the end of 1850 by Bradbury & Evans.

I first read David Copperfield during the summer holidays of 1988. It had a profound impact on me at the time. Kingsolver, with this retelling, has added another important layer to our understanding about how intergenerational trauma and poverty continues to play out in our modern lives.

Favourite Passage:

I’ve tried in this telling, time and time again, to pinpoint the moment where everything starts to fall apart. Everything, meaning me. But there’s also the opposite, where some little nut cracks open inside you and a tree starts to grow. Even harder to nail. Because that thing’s going to be growing a long time before you notice. Years maybe. then one day you say, Huh, that little crack between my ears has turned into this whole damn tree of wonderful.

*Wikipedia entry: Opioid epidemic | 6 November 2023

ISBN: 9780571376483	
Imprint:	Faber Fiction	
Pub Date: 9 May 2023 (originally published 18 October 2022)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 548
Origin: TBR
Dates Read: 27 August 2023 - 4 October 2023
This post was written on the traditional land of the Wangal clan, one of the 29 clans of the Eora Nation within the Sydney basin. This Reading Life recognises the continuous custodianship & connection to Country of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for the lands, seas & skies on which we live. They are this nations first storytellers.

Published by This Reading Life

36 thoughts on “Demon Copperhead | Barbara Kingsolver”

  1. Pingback: October 2023 | The Books

  2. Glad Kingsolver worked for you this time! It was a good book … what I noticed when reading David Copperfield alongside it was that it was all in one voice, Demon’s. Dickens brought characters to life through how they talked (or wrote, in the case of Mr. Micawber). It just made his particular gift more apparent to me, but Kingsolver’s is also powerful.

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  4. Not having read the original, I have been in two minds about whether to read this or not. I’m not much of a one for American literature but you might have convinced me to give this one a try. I like the idea of a novel exploring big interconnected social issues in this way.

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    1. I don’t read a lot of US fiction these days either (when I do, I usually favour women writers). It would be interesting to hear what you think without having David & Dickens influencing your experience.

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    1. My entire book group loved it too. About three of them had the time to reread David before starting on Demon, and they were the ones who raved about it the most. They appreciated the parallels and found the modern voice fascinating. The opioid crisis in the US is only a news story for us; Kingsolver gave it a human voice and face.

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  7. Most readers, but not all, seem to love this book. I would like to read it, since I am a fan of Kingsolver. However, I am not a fan of Dickens, and when I realised that it is the story of DC, I was reluctant. Then someone told me, that most people who love DC do not love D Copperhead. You seem to love them both though, and I guess that is a good sign as ever.

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    1. Most of my book group had read David Copperfield either much earlier like me, but three of them also read it before starting on Demon. They loved it too. Dickens purists might not like it, but even though I love Dickens, he can be rather long-winded thanks to the serialisation of his writing/publishing. Kingsolvers story felt ‘tighter’ as a result.

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  8. I got this book for last Xmas and have been meaning to read it all year, but keep on putting it to one side because it seems like a long hill to climb…but your review has made me vow to read it before Dec 25 arrives with new books to distract me. I loved DC since I read it for the first of many times as a teenager, and I think the bottom line is that the bones of the story are solid, mythic really. So Kingsolver can reimagine it in Appalachia and dress it in her own writing and the bones are still holding up solid.

    Excellent review, wonderful quotes, inspiring. Thank you!

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  10. The only Kingsolver I have read is The Poisonwood Bible which was ok – she writes well and her heart seems to be in the right place (ie. on the left). I mostly don’t notice when one book references another book, but it seems to be a long literary tradition to use old stories in new ways, which is what the author seems to have done here. I guess if it comes up in the library I’ll read (listen to) it, but not otherwise.

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  11. What a review! Wow. You put your heart and soul into this one. My husband finished Demon Copperhead this week after I practically pestered him to death to read it. He had tears in his eyes at the end.
    Hop on over to my blog if you’d like to join in on some quotable fun. I’m taking over for Freda until she gets well for the Friday56 meme where we publish quotes from page 56 of the book we are currently reading. Loved to have you join us. Friday56 Quotes

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    1. I think Mr Books will get a lot out of Demon too.
      I used to join in Friday56 regularly many years ago; not sure why I stopped. I couldn’t manage it every Friday I guess. Seeing your Tim Lake post made me think I could do it once a month to highlight my book group’s read though…

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  13. Pingback: Tom Lake | Ann Patchett – This Reading Life
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  16. I’m glad that you loved this book. I did too. I’m not good at Dickens so had no axe to grind about the original story but I think Kingsolver makes this her own. Interestingly, within the last six months in the UK, a friend of mine was prescribed Oxycontin for a trauma injury, months later they were still giving it to her. When she said, I think I should start weaning myself off this stuff, the response was ‘oh yeah, good for you’!

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    1. Yikes! That dr’s response almost sounds criminal!! B26 recently had a knee op and only took the opioid prescribed for the first day – refusing to take it after that because he was so concerned about possible side-effects (ie addiction).
      But I’m glad you liked Demon Copperhead too. It tends to polarise opinion.

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  17. I’d forgotten you’d read this. I’m glad I didn’t read your review before I posted mind because I may have given up. This is a great review that captures the book well with some excellent choices of quotes. I’m thinking in fact of doing a second post post just sharing a couple but maybe now I won’t!

    I’m intrigued to know which Kingsolvers you started and didn’t like? I haven’t read any since The Poisonwood Bible, which I thought was great except that it’s one of those book that didn’t need the tacked on much-later ending. But I had also read two earlier, must shorter novels, and I so liked her heart. After these three, though, I felt I’d done Kingsolver, much as I liked her heart because there are so many writers out there I still want to read. It was only my reading group – as for you – that got me reading this one.

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    1. Thank you.

      I tried to leave the message below on your Demon post which also responds to this comment. I back arrowed to copy and paste it just in case it disappears for good.

      Thank you for the link 🙂

      I’ve tried to read Kingsolver before this but found her style way too preachy for my tastes, so I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t find this to be so with Demon. Perhaps my didactic radar has shifted?

      Actually it’s probably more about me completely backing away from anything that smacks of preachy religious stuff, but I am willing to go along when it concerns social issues I also feel passionate about too.

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  18. Pingback: Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead (#BookReview) | Whispering Gums

  19. I’m in the minority, having not read David Copperfield. This was my third Kingsolver book ( The Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible ). I listened to this one and initially struggled with being able to go on due to the visceral pain and trauma in this boy’s life and the compelling desire to know his story. Kingsolver delivers her usual gut wrenching views of humanity along with abiding hope.

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  20. I couldn’t get into this book at all. It just seemed to go on and on and on. Five ladies in our book club and none of us liked it!

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