Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner

WINNER OF THE 2023 PULITZER PRIZE - WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

A New York Times "Ten Best Books of 2022" - An Oprah's Book Club Selection - An Instant New York Times Bestseller - An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller - A #1 Washington Post Bestseller

"Demon is a voice for the ages--akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield--only even more resilient." --Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

"May be the best novel of 2022. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." (Ron Charles, Washington Post)

From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

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560 pages

Average rating: 8.48

1,513 RATINGS

35 REVIEWS

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richardbakare

Nov 06, 2023

10/10 stars

Full stop, this is a beautifully tragic book. The main characters journey reminds me of a quote from Thomas Levenson, “…not everyone follows a straight course to the person they might become.” His story is like watching the slowest car wreck of a life happen in front of you. Year after year we Demon try to make the most of a patched together family become and glean wisdom from his raw survival. In the end he finds his own flavor of humanity in the overlapping Venn diagram of life experiences. Beyond Demon’s story is Kingsolver’s heart breaking picture of the reality of the foster care system in America. What makes the pain so visceral is Kingsolver’s inscrutable attention to detail of the struggles of foster children, combined with leaving just the right amount of things unsaid. The gritty and pungently lingering aftertaste of a life in the forgotten parts of America sits on you long after you put it down. Kingsolver has created a story of a place and time where all hope seemingly goes to die. That blame for that bleak state is directly and indirectly laid bare at the feet of America collectively. Kingsolver uses character voice to demonstrate the failure of a country to deliver opportunity to every corner of the land. Along with policies that compound the costs of being poor in America. Such as the evaporating food, housing, and income security in America. Along with the deep social inequalities that affect manifests themselves differently in Rural and Urban America. It makes you wonder why anyone espouses the greatness of America’s unbridled capitalism when the truth on the ground is obviously counter proof. This novel is so beyond heavy that I can’t see how Kingsolver made it through writing it herself. Maybe it was a driving goal to show how all of the America’s people love it, but America does not love all of its people. This is a titanic of a read that feels just the right length for the subject at hand and at the same time not long enough.

K8LS

Nov 06, 2023

6/10 stars

We followed that kid for years (and pages and pages). Then the story just… ended.

ChristineBudnik

Oct 27, 2023

10/10 stars

LOVE! Her writing just transports!!

Sblocker

Sep 30, 2023

2/10 stars

This one starts out strong, but it goes on for so long. I found myself wondering in multiple parts what relevance does this part have to the story. The end could not come quick enough. For me, it wasn’t worth the read.

SheReadsAlot

Sep 09, 2023

8/10 stars

This main character is a testament of how resilience is directly tied to the resources one has in life. It might be a fictional tale but there's so many Demons in America. What a heart breaking tale of what poverty and opioids misuse can do to an entire community.