About the Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE - WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century - An Oprah's Book Club Selection - An Instant New York Times Bestseller - An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller - A #1 Washington Post Bestseller - A New York Times "Ten Best Books of the Year"
"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 [the year]. . . . 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 and the recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, 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.
About the Author :
Barbara Kingsolver is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including the novels Unsheltered, The Bean Trees, and The Poisonwood Bible, as well as books of poetry, essays, creative nonfiction, and Coyote's Wild Home, a children's book co-authored with Lily Kingsolver. She also collaborated with family members on the influential Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver's work has been translated into more than thirty languages and has earned a devoted readership at home and abroad. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has received numerous awards and honors including the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel, Demon Copperhead, the National Humanities Medal, and most recently, the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and its Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives with her husband on a farm in southern Appalachia.
Review :
"Absorbing....Readers see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath Demon's self-protective exterior.... Emotionally engaging is Demon's fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it.... An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored." - Kirkus Review (Starred Review)
"Kingsolver brings a notably different energy from her previous work to Demon Copperhead...through a tremendous narrative voice, one so sharp and fresh as to overwhelm the reader's senses....Demon's spirit comes through, and it is haunting. It's the reason the pages keep turning....Kingsolver has made this story her own, and what a joy it is to slip into this world and inhabit it, even with all its challenges." - BookPage
"The voice of Demon is so original. . . . Straight-talking, alert, witty and hard to deceive. In other words, a defiant retort to stereotypes about Appalachia. He's mouthy and smart in a contemporary way, but he's making the same call for attention and compassion Charles Dickens did more than a century and a half ago." - USA Today
"A heartrending, probing and ultimately hopeful tale about a young boy's journey from devastation to survival....It's hard to ascertain which is more brilliant, Kingsolver's skill in modernizing Dickens' narrative or the voice she gives to the privations and adversities facing the land and people she so dearly loves." - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Demon is a voice for the ages--akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield--only even more resilient. I'm crazy about this book, which parses the epidemic in a beautiful and intimate new way. I think it's her best." - Beth Macy, author of Dopesick
"Kingsolver's capacious, ingenious, wrenching, and funny survivor's tale is a virtuoso present-day variation on Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. . . . Kingsolver's tour de force is a serpentine, hard-striking tale of profound dimension and resonance." - Booklist (Starred Review)
"Kingsolver's new novel is her best in years. . . . The character of Damon is right up there with the best classic orphans of literatre. Believe me: you will root for this lost boy." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"A riveting, epic tale...[Kingsolver's] exquisite writing takes a wrenching story and makes it worthwhile... Kingsolver has given us a superb novel." - Christian Science Monitor
"Kingsolver has made this story her own, and what a joy it is to slip into this world and inhabit it, even with all its challenges." - BookPage
"This is storytelling at its best. The voice rings true and so do the incidents." - Stephen King
"With its bold reversals of fate and flamboyant cast, this is storytelling on a grand scale. . . . As Demon discovers, owning his story--every part of it--and finding a way to tell it is how he'll wrest some control over his life. And what a story it is: acute, impassioned, heartbreakingly evocative, told by a narrator who's a product of multiple failed systems, yes, but also of a deep rural landscape with its own sustaining traditions." - The Guardian
"An epic...brimming with vitality and outrage....the rare 560-page book you wish would never end."
- People "Book of the Week"
