I have been anticipating a new release by Barbara Kingsolver since reading Unsheltered and The Poisonwood Bible. When I saw that she had a book coming out in October that would tackle institutional poverty and the opioid crisis in America, I knew it was a book I wanted to read.
Demon Copperhead is set in Virginia, in the mountains of southern Appalachia, but it could have been set in my own hometown. In the poverty that prevailed among the town, I could clearly see the small South Carolina town that I grew up in.
The protagonist of the story is Demon Copperhead–a young boy who was born to a teenage single mother struggling to overcome drug addiction and alcoholism. He was given the name Damon at birth, but was quickly nicknamed Demon. The narrative voice of Demon is one that I will not soon forget. He is witty and is dripping with attitude and a drive to survive as he struggles with the hard hand that life has given him.
Throughout the story, Demon braves abuse, the death of his mother, foster care, child labor, a failed education system, athletic success (football), addiction, love and loss. Through all of this he struggles to understand a system that has failed the poor of his community and himself.
Charles Dickens’ classic David Copperfield provided the inspiration for this epic tale and I can definitely see the similarities and the correlation between these two books and their handling of societal issues.
Demon Copperhead was everything that I love in a novel from its exploration of the institutional poverty that plagues today’s society to the real and heartfelt way the story is told through Demon’s eyes. I love a book that delves deep into a character’s life–celebrating their joys and compassionately feeling their heartbreaks.
“Some are going to say I was never anything better. Not even born in a hospital to a mom fixing to take me back to her mobile home, but born in the mobile home, so that’s like the Eagle Scout of trailer trash. Kids like me with our teen moms putting whiskey on our gums to shut us up, Coke in the baby bottle, we’re the pity of the world. But I started out as decent as any kid, saying please and thank you, doing my homework, figuring out how to get smiled at. I played to win, with all my little prides and dreams. So what if they were junior-varsity dreams, like marrying Carol Danvers and being an Avenger whenever I grew up. I got up everyday thinking the sun was out there shining, and it could just as well shine on me as any other human person.”
As I read this novel, I couldn’t help but think of people in my own life who have suffered in similar ways to Demon. I could see the family members who have died of drug overdoses and those that have dealt with the too early deaths of loved ones and felt the hard pressing anguish of seemingly inescapable poverty. I wish for them a more compassionate society.