Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

(NOTE: Some of the links in this blog are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase on Amazon. Thank you for supporting my writing in this manner. More details here.)

*****

Demon Copperhead won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction earlier this year. I often don’t enjoy books with this accolade, but I liked this one. Most reviews will state that it is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. I have not read that classic, so I cannot comment, but I can tell you this, it had elements of many amazing books that have been popular over the years – such as The Goldfinch and White Oleander – all rolled into one. I’ll go into detail on this later, but first, here is the basic plot:

Damon Fields, a.k.a. Demon Copperhead, narrates the story. This is good, because the book is harrowing and as we travel through his life story, we are at least assured he survives it. We start with his birth to a teenage single mother – and drug addict – living in a single-wide trailer in the mountains of southern Appalachia. Ultimately the mom dies leaving Demon in foster homes where life is beyond tough, but where lifelong friends are made. Ultimately, he catches a break and has a chance at life in his high school years. He even becomes a high school football star! But then a knee injury sets him off on the road of pain killers at exactly the time that oxycodone, pill mills, and the opioid epidemic arrived.

Post high school years are punishing due to his relationship with an addict and the untimely death of many a friend, not to mention his own addiction. Ultimately, he hits rock bottom. He tells us this on page 473 and the chronicling of his misery goes on until page 508. In other words, Kingsolver doesn’t just tell us in short hand that he hit a low, she shows it in detail and has it running on continuous loop through Demon’s head.

Here are the other books that I thought of as I read this one:

• The Goldfinch featured a young boy and the untimely death of his mom.
• White Oleander had a stark depiction of foster care.
• Empire of Pain, a non-fiction work, gave the entire history of Oxycodone and the opioid epidemic.
• Educated showed the pull of home even if it is not the healthiest of places for us.
• Where the Crawdads Sing showed another orphaned child with a talent that saved the day.

Beyond the fullness of the plot, the writing is vivid and wrenching. Here are some favorite quotes:

• On Demon’s relationship with his mom: “If you were surprised a mom would discuss boyfriend hotness with a kid still learning not to pick his nose, you’ve not seen the far end of lonely. Mom would light me a cigarette and we’d have our chats, menthols of course, this being in her mind, the child-friendly option. I thought smoking with Mom and discussing various men’s stud factors was a sign of deep respect.”
• On describing his addiction: “I was still in the good part of my day, before fine and dandy edges over to sad and irritable. Then come sweats, yawning, itching, goosebumps, shaking and puking. These phases I could read like a watch. I was optimistic on getting home before fucked o’clock.”
• On the many losses in his life: “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.”
• On a hard-won gratitude: “The only roads I knew were full of people that would sooner run me over then help me out. I could end up as dead as my mom and baby brother on any given day. I settled on being glad this was not the day. I had a full belly, and wasn’t getting rained on. Tomorrow, another story.”
• This last quote brings me to my major take away from the book. In it, Demon says, “Outside of the dummy classes, you’d be hard-pressed to find a kid in Jonesville Middle that had ever held down a job. Being friends with such people entailed listening to made-up problems to some degree.”

The major takeaway?

This book reminds me how fortunate I am to have had a “normal” life with “normal” problems – many of them made-up to some degree. It makes me aware that most of the hard knocks I have experienced in life are the ones I read about in terrific books like this one.

*****

If you like my writing, did you know I have four books in print? They are all available on my Etsy shop. My newest book, Love, Loss, and Moving On, is also available on Amazon. Please have a look and tell a friend!