Demon Copperhead

I really liked Demon Copperhead, it is a challenging but rewarding read. Having never read Dickens' David Copperfield, I didn't know what to expect. But I was pleasantly surprised by this coming-of-age tale, which shows the genuine struggle of growing up with poverty, addiction, and violence in Appalachian America.

Broadly speaking, I don't like art that details addiction. Not because it isn't important (it is), but rather because many attempts are derivative and cliché. Demon Copperhead is not that. It incorporates and describes it but doesn't make it the be-all-and-end-all theme. Instead, this story shows us love and loss, pain and joy, addiction and sobriety, all intricately woven together to create an endearing story of a young boy who is lost in the troubling adult world around him.

The characters are all real; that is to say, you feel you can know them and that they act like ordinary folk would, not like perfect Hollywood heroes do. The characters are well crafted (a testament to Ms. Kingsolvers literary ability) and don't fall easily into well-established tropes. They are authentic, have real personalities that evolve, and act consistently with them. In that sense, the book is a triumph.

As an Englishman, foreign to the culture and history of the Appalachians, I think Ms. Kingsolver does these people justice. She uses the protagonist (and other characters) to detail the struggle of their lives without mockery and bigotry. Moreover, she incorporates their struggles as a theme within the book. Characters talk about it and, in fact, challenge the prejudices that are put against them. In a world where many individuals find themselves as a discriminated against minority, the Appalachian people don't have many pieces of art that are positive to their plight, and in this sense, she has done them justice, which I greatly admire.

While the book is written in an easy-to-digest way that requires little reading comprehension, it does require emotional comprehension, so to speak. As such, it did take me two weeks to finish because sometimes the story was so challenging and bleak that I didn't want to pick it up again. However, it must be said that the exact opposite was also true; in some moments, I couldn't put it down.

I would definitely recommend this book to all who seek an enlightening, endearing, but nevertheless challenging and rewarding read.