Demon Copperhead
The best book of the past 10 years? That, and beyond.
Date read: October 2023
Date published: October 2022
Summary
Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind (via Goodreads)
My Take
I’m going to just assume that you’ve either read this book or you have it on your mental, digital, paper, or other list. Bottom line is, this is a must read book. Part of this project is me trying to figure out how to communicate about writing, and reading, which doesn’t come natural to me. I can talk about Phish jams all day long, but communicating the power of the books is challenging. Which is why I wanted to do this book today, to try and accurately convey the power, scope, and lasting impact of this book.
I think this book will go down as one of the best of the century. As noted by everyone, including the summary above, it’s a Dickensian tale (meaning, in short, that it conveys bleak scenes of hardship, with some comedy to help provide balance). What Kingsolver does in this book is awe-inspiring. She follows a main character, Demon, as he grows up, matures, faces obstacles, overcomes them, and then faces more. The voice of Demon changes as he grows and matures. You immediately fall in love with this character, and find yourself rooting for him for all of the 600 pages of this novel. To adjust the just manner of speech to a character of adolescence, teenage years, and beyond, that’s a skill that some writers probably possess. But to do it in a way that perfectly mirrors the story, and the cultural history around the story, is awe-inspiring.
Some books, like, say, one by a jackass VP candidate who it turns out is just as much of a shape-shifting swamp-dweller as the ones he and his supreme leader deride, is ham-handed with the problems facing Appalachian America in the early 20th century. You can talk about opiods and manufacturing jobs being lost and poverty and lost hope and faith in the country and the economy, but doing so overtly puts the reader in the situation where we have no space to absorb the story as literature.
Kingsolver does the opposite. We watch Demon, a “hillbilly” by any definition of the word, navigate a trailer-park upbringing, poverty, despair, hopelessness, drugs, and more, alongside some triumphs as well. But the cultural, economic, and political landscape is less overt. It’s mostly a backdrop. It’s not a political lesson. It’s a setting that exists to help communicate the main character’s journey.
“Once upon a time we had our honest living that was God and country. Then the world turns and there’s no God anymore, no country, but it’s still in your blood that coal is God’s gift and you want to believe. Because otherwise it was one more scam in the fuck-train that’s railroaded over these mountains since George Washington rode in and set his crew to cutting down our trees. Everything that could be taken is gone. Mountains left with their heads blown off, rivers running black. My people are dead of trying, or headed that way, addicted as we are to keeping ourselves alive. There’s no more blood here to give, just war wounds. Madness. A world of pain, looking to be killed.”
Don’t get me wrong, Demon Copperhead is absolutely a social justice novel. But what’s more important, and more lasting to me, is that as a book, it was impossible to put down. I couldn’t wait to read what happened to Demon next. It’s fast-paced, colorful, exciting, and filled with emotion. It uses foreshadowing in the most brilliant way. And it captures universal human feelings and experiences with a bit of humor and the voice of a person who is fundamentally broken, but also good.
“It hit me pretty hard, how there’s no kind of sad in this world that will stop it turning. People will keep on wanting what they want, and you’re on your own.”
“Live long enough, and all things you ever loved can turn around to scorch you blind. The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.”
“What’s an oxy, I’d asked. That November it was still a shiny new thing. OxyContin, God’s gift for the laid-off deep-hole man with his back and neck bones grinding like bags of gravel. For the bent-over lady pulling double shifts at Dollar General with her shot knees and ADHD grandkids to raise by herself. For every football player with some of this or that torn up, and the whole world riding on his getting back in the game. This was our deliverance. The tree was shaken and yes, we did eat of the apple.”
This book is sad, hilarious, and inspiring, extremely American in every sense. The contrasts between dark and light are stark, but like any good story, the pain and struggle make the moments of love and redemption even more powerful. It’s an epic story, following a character from a trailer to foster homes where Demon is subjected to awful conditions and treatment. And then another foster home where, yeah, it gets worse. But what’s maybe most interesting to me about this book is that these experiences make Demon wiser, more thoughtful, and a better person.
Demon Copperhead will go down as one of the best books of this century, and captures the story of current America in a thrilling, funny, entertaining, and joyful way.
Without giving up major plot points, this book took me on a journey of highs and lows where I knew that the highs would lead to more lows, but it was a journey that I couldn’t leave. I want to go back. For anyone who hasn’t read this yet, I’m envious that you get to experience this for the first time.
My Rating
10/10—I’ll never forget the experience of reading this book