Demon Copperhead

I don’t know if I can say anything about the 2023 Pulitzer-winning Demon Copperhead (2022) by Barbara Kingsolver that hasn’t already been written. Just Google it for several excellent reviews. It’s a modern retelling of David Copperfield by Dickens.

Although I have been a Kingsolver fan for many, many years, I was a little apprehensive, because it is about the opioid epidemic, and descriptions of drug use in books or depictions in film usually make me sick to my stomach. So, I was relieved that Kingsolver is judicious in her descriptions of actual drug use. She’s more focused on the effects of the addiction on the people around the addicts, such as the child Damon, and later, after Damon was addicted himself, on the constant calculus he was making based on how much of the drug he currently possessed.

The audiobook was excellent, though very long–I couldn’t listen to Damon’s story fast enough—I had to listen at 1.5 speed and check out the Wikipedia plot summary often to ease my anxiety about what would happen to this child who never really had a chance.

Demon deserves every accolade it received—it is epic, heartbreaking, and hopeful, all at the same time. And I consider it weight-neutral, free from anti-fat bias. And the best part–from the royalties she earned from the novel, Kingsolver has opened a recovery house for women recovering from addiction, to give them the support that Damon’s mother never had and as a way to pay the community back for their stories.