This novel's oomph lies in its narration - a taut, witty telling by Damon, long grown, about his mine-laden youth. That's saying something - she's written many brilliant ones, including 'The Poisonwood Bible' and 'Flight Behavior.' This was our deliverance.'ĭespite its bulk - almost 600 pages - 'Demon Copperhead' is a page-turner, and Kingsolver's best novel by far. For every football player with some of this or that torn up, and the whole world riding on his getting back in the game. For the bent-over lady pulling double shifts with her shot knees and ADHD grandkids to raise by herself. 'Ox圜ontin, God's gift for the laid-off deep-hole man with his back and neck bones grinding like bags of gravel. 'What's an oxy, I'd asked,' Demon writes. Most of his story is about his struggle with addiction, along with the similar nightmares faced by his friends and enemies. He becomes a high school football star and a magnet to many a teenage girl.Īfter a knee injury, he becomes addicted to painkillers. There Demon meets the enigmatic teenager Fast-Forward, a hero to all who know him, especially the young women - until he betrays them like the smooth snake he is.Īs he enters his teen years, Demon's fortunes turn - he is taken in by relatives of his dead father who give him food, shelter and love. When his mother dies, Demon lands in the foster home from hell, a foul farm whose owner uses several 'sons' as slave labor. His early childhood is shaped by his childlike mother, who is either out-of-her-mind high or in rehab his saving grace is the nearby Peggot family, whose elders shower him with kindness. 'Demon Copperhead' is about America's most impoverished, disadvantaged demographic - those who populate the remote hills and coal towns of Appalachia.ĭemon Copperhead narrates his own story in a witty cadence. 'David Copperfield,' one of the finest coming-of-age tales ever written, is largely about the suffering caused by relentless poverty spawned by the greed and corruption of those in power. Schoolkids twist his first name into 'Demon,' his last name into that of the lethal snake.

You don't need to have read Charles Dickens' masterpiece to appreciate Kingsolver's work, but some familiarity will add to the appreciation: OMG, is that nasty U-Haul guy really Uriah Heep? Is fragile little addict Dori based on Dora? If so, she's doomed!ĭemon Copperhead, birth name Damon Fields, is a green-eyed, red-haired lad born on the grimy floor of a trailer to a doomed teenage addict. This sprawling, brilliant story, set in southwestern Virginia's impoverished Lee County in the 1990s and early 2000s, is a modern retelling of 'David Copperfield.' The lure of Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel begins with its title: 'Demon Copperhead.' What, now?

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