Kingsolver has an amazing writer’s voice that conjures a likeable and reflective protagonist
It’s no wonder that Kingsolver’s huge tome has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023. Demon Copperhead is inspired by Dicken’s David Copperfield with its empathetic retelling set in rural Appalachia. It tells the story of a boy born to a teenage mother living in a trailer, surviving by the kindness of neighbours and teachers while enduring extreme hardship at the grinding wheels of generational poverty.
Kingsolver has an amazing writer’s voice that conjures a likeable and reflective protagonist, the reflective red-headed Demon Copperhead. It is extraordinary to read the inner and outer dialogue in the rich patois of folks in southwest Virginia. There’s a lot of humour too. Despite the longstanding brutal aftereffects of coal mining and opioid addiction, the novel is ultimately a message of finding oneself despite what the world throws at you.