Some Rise to the Top

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Demon Copperhead, a standout novel

Have you seen my reviews on a few books I’ve read this year? That post was titled Be Brave because during high school, some handful of decades ago, I hated writing reviews and book reports and I needed to be brave with a return to that endeavor. Feedback was good. Thank you all.

One novel I left out—on purpose—was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. This novel, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, should stand alone. Whenever I’m telling friends about Demon Copperhead at a dinner party or BBQ the novel gets this tagline from me, “It’s a serious commentary on today’s American society.”

“Novelists like Kingsolver have a particular knack for making us empathize with lives that may bear little resemblance to our own.”

– Salon

From the very opening of Demon Copperhead, as our protagonist is born to a mother who is passed out on the bathroom floor of her single-wide trailer, Demon’s life in the mountains of southern Appalachia is a wild ride. Kingsolver plays with us throughout this 546-page tome. The main character’s name, his nickname, is a play on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. His surname comes from the color of his hair. It’s also a venomous snake in that region. As in Dickens’ 1850 classic, Kingsolver’s novel is a narration by the protagonist as he details the adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity.

In my comment on American society, above, I’m addressing how Demon stoically navigates today’s perils of foster care, child labor, neglected schools, success on the football field, addiction, failed loves, and devastating losses. Throughout the story, he reckons with his anonymity in a popular culture that has long since abandoned rural communities.

“Kingsolver is a writer who can help us understand and navigate the chaos of these times.”

– Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Kingsolver takes a literary classic and makes it her own, peering into the dark corners not of Dickensian England, but of present day in the neglected hollers of Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains. Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon Copperhead, came into the world already behind the eight ball of life, and before long he’s in foster care placements that resemble work camps more than loving homes. Throughout this coming-of-age novel, the rug is constantly pulled out from under him but Demon has reserves of Olympian endurance that somehow, like the man in the arena, enables him to get back up again and again. His knees get dusty—he faces hunger, cruelty, loss, and is swept up in the tidal wave of OxyContin that overtakes his tiny county—but he never loses his love for the place that claims him as its own. Kingsolver’s writing is arresting and illuminating; in baring Demon’s soul on the page she gives voice and visibility to a place and its people where beauty and desperation live side by side.” —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor

I’ve been a fan of this writer since reading The Poisonwood Bible and expect I will be for some time the come. Kingsolver’s way with words, how she showed Demon’s life, one that is equal parts sidesplitting and pitiful, is mesmerizing. On almost every page I was either in shock, or laughing, and often astounded by Ms. Kingsolver’s use of simile and metaphor. Several times, I’d have to stop reading and ask, “How does she come up with these?”

“Mom had walked down the road and Stoner was bent over kissing her like he was trying to suck something out of her guts with a straw. And her a willing party to the crime.”

“Where does the road to ruin start? That’s the point of getting all this down, I’m told. To get a handle on some choice you made. Or was made for you. By the bullies that curdled your heart’s milk and honey, or the ones before that curdled theirs. Hell, let’s blame the coal guys, or whoever wrote the book of Lee County commandments. Thou shalt forsake all things you might love or study on, books, numbers, a boy’s life made livable in pictures he drew. Leave these ye redneck faithful, to chase the one star left shining on this place: manly bloodthirst. The smell of mauled sod and sweat and pent-up lust and popcorn. The Friday-night lights.”

So, there you have it, the best of the best that I’ve been reading in ‘24. Demon Copperheadis an emotional rollercoaster, set in contemporary Appalachia and told with such passion and dexterity that you won’t want to put it down.

Watch for more of my posts to come. I’ve still got to tell y’all about shows I’ve been enjoying on the flat screen. Series like Monsieur Spade (AMC+, Prime), After the Flood (BritBox), Bodkin (Netflix), and Annika (PBS).

I’ll also—very soon—share a new short story. This one is a fast-paced game of wits, drones swooping from the sky, and blazing gun battles. Our heroine, Elena, is a third-generation CIA operative with Russian ancestry. When a former KGB agent lands on US soil and brings a crew of mercenaries along to hunt her down, the excrement hits the rotating element.