Notes

a novel
Barbara Kingsolver.
548 pages.
Summary: Demon Copperhead: 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. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as growing grass. For a generation growin gup at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction - it's neighbours, parents and friends. 'Family ' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. Demon befriends us on this, his journey through 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. Inspired by the unflinching truth-telling of David Copperfield, Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. (Publisher)