Barbara Kingsolver – Book’d Out

Title: Demon Copperhead

Published: 18th October 2022, Faber

Status: Read October 2022 courtesy Hachette Australia

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My Thoughts:

Inspired by the Charles Dicken’s classic novel, David Copperfield, Barbara Kingsolver presents Demon Copperhead, an extraordinary coming of age tale set in contemporary America.

“My thinking here is to put everything in the order of how it happened, give or take certain intervals ….it’s easiest to forget about the misery and pretend you knew all along what you were doing. Assuming you’ve ended up someplace you’re proud to be. And if not, easier to forget the whole thing, period. So this is going to be option three, not proud, not forgetting. Not easy.”

Born ‘en caul’ on the floor of his drug addicted, teenaged single mother’s rented single-wide trailer in the Appalachian mountains, Demon Fields’ red hair and green eyes inherited from his late Melungeon father, earns him the nickname Demon Copperhead. Tended to mainly by the neighbouring Peggot family, who are raising a grandson of the same age, the deprivations of his childhood barely register, Demon is content to roam the woods with his best friend, draw super heroes, and dream of one day seeing the ocean. But that ease ends after his mother marries a violent bully and then, never able to maintain her sobriety for long, overdoses on Demon’s eleventh birthday, abandoning him to an overburdened foster care system.

Related in the first person, looking back from barely a decade later, Demon continues to share his incredible story, revealing a life of desperation and tragedy, of courage and hope. I confess it took a few chapters before my interest was engaged. I’m generally not fond of the stream of consciousness style Kingsolver deploys and Demon’s ‘voice’, being of an unfamiliar cadence to me, took a little time to get used to, but once I did, I was utterly captivated and reluctant to put this book down.

There were moments when I was tempted to however just because Demon’s experiences of abuse, exploitation, addiction and loss evoked such strong emotion, from horror and anger to frustration and pity. Even on the rare occasions when things are going well for him, there is an unrelenting certainty of impending doom. Demon’s resilience in the face of disadvantage and hardship is remarkable, but his need for it, especially as a young child, is infuriating and heartbreaking.

Kingsolver’s support for social justice issues is well known, and Demon Copperhead is an indictment of engineered poverty, under-resourced social welfare and education services, unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies and doctors, prejudice and inequality. She calls out privilege, hypocrisy, stereotypes and ignorance with an understanding of the harm they perpetuate.

Offering memorable characters and a powerful and thought-provoking narrative, Demon Copperhead is an utterly absorbing novel. Certainly one of the best I’ve read this year.

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