Do you want another review of Demon Copperhead? I know we already have plenty of them on this site, and you can throw a stone on the web and hit 20 different reviews – this book is insanely popular right now – so there’s no argument about NEEDING another review. Well, here’s one more – I’ll try not to repeat but as fellow writers-of-reviews, you know how tricky that can be with such a popular novel.
Things you probably already know: the novel is a modern retelling of David Copperfield, which you don’t have to have read to enjoy the novel (I haven’t, and for the most part I did). It’s set in a small town in Kentucky, in the 1990s through 2010s. It begins when Demon (born Damon, given the name Demon Copperhead because with his distinctive red hair and green eyes he looks remarkably like the father, also known as Copperhead, that he never met) is a child, and progresses through his later childhood and adolescence. While he will say he is an adult far sooner in the novel, Kingsolver reminds us over and over again that this is still a child, a person not yet 18, with no rights to vote and a pre-frontal cortex that is still in development. It exposes the vast unfairness of poverty and the destruction of the opioid crisis (see the many reviews of Empire of Pain as a potential companion non-fiction to complement this novel).
Demon has a unique voice as a narrator. He’s intelligent and irreverent, and his observations of the people around him are often tinged with humor. Demon was born to a teenage single mother, literally inside a trailer. He grows up in that trailer, which is actually owned by their neighbors the Peggots. Mr. and Mrs. Peggot have a sort of stabilizing force in Demon’s life, as they are also raising their grandson (known throughout the book as Maggot, which is not as unkind as it seems). Demon’s mother was raised in the foster system herself, and her abuse as a ward of the state is alluded to, especially as she struggles to stay clean for her son. Eventually, Demon too falls into the hands of the state. At the tender age of 11, he faces foster families that see him more as a tool than a child.
Even when Demon finds a bit of stability – a foster family that provides enough food, the social status that accompanies talent on the football field in a small town, the comfort of friends and a girlfriend – it’s tinged with his own fears. Not that Demon has unfounded fears – his whole life has basically been a string of attempts to simply stay alive. His only goal is to survive childhood, he cannot even think about what might come next. And so it is not entirely surprising when his path leads him directly into addiction – he never really suspected it would go anywhere, anyway.
Kingsolver is masterful at including just enough foreshadowing that the story feels earned but still surprising. Key moments hit like a visceral gut punch. This book contains lots of very vivid descriptions of drug use and violence, as well as the aftermath of sexual assault. At times, it was very difficult to read, so take some caution there as needed. It’s a longer book (560 pages), which Kingsolver uses to really enmesh the reader in Demon’s world.
And what a world it is. Kingsolver draws from her own childhood in Kentucky to create a strong sense of place in this novel. She talks about the beauty of the landscape, and captures the interpersonal mannerisms of a small town. No one locks their doors, even in the year 2000. She even contrasts rural poverty with city poverty at a certain point – while both might lead to hunger, in the holler there might be the option of hunting or trading with neighbors to get by. No such option exists for the city- although there are more jobs (although I’d argue the jobs in the city don’t pay enough to do much more than make you realize you spend all your time working for so very little).
Novels alone won’t solve a social crisis, but they do help us to feel more connected to the social impact. It can be easy to remove ourselves from problems that feel too big, like poverty, a broken social service system that cannot serve children properly, and the opioid crisis. This novel manages to personalize these issues without feeling preachy, and for that reason I hope it continues to be extremely popular.
