Reviews

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Only show reviews with written explanations

sarahetc's review

5.0

I think I waited too long and cogitated too much on this one. Lord knows I can't go five minutes in the car without an audiobook, so I was on to the next one immediately and having since finished that, I couldn't even remember when I'd wrapped this up. Luckily, Hoopla tells me it was January 20 and that was my second check-out. I'm just glad there were no holds and I could get it again after it poof! Returned itself without inviting me to say, "But I only have an hour left!"

I see why this won the Pulitzer. It was technically masterful. It was also probably something the committee could feel good about awarding, because who doesn't feel sorry for those poor, dumb shit hillbillies and their opioid epidemic. I read/listened to this from two different perspectives: as someone who loves literature and loves a well-written story and loves to dig into all the crevices and nooks and crannies and talk motif and characterization and word choice and hey, come back. I also couldn't help but listen to it as someone who's spent most of her life in the South, including four years in the heart of Appalachia at Maryville College, just outside Great Smoky Mountain National Park and, depending on the road taken, a couple hours away from the setting of the novel.

So yeah. I don't want to write two reviews. And I don't have a ton of time to do that either. And I'm sure there are plenty of well-written ones already. So I'll just maybe make a sort of list.

This was technically masterful. Kingsolver gently tweaked and evolved Damon's language as he grew. The slang changed over time, just as it would have in the late nineties. The swearing evolved and Damon's inner monologue maintained an intractable core of self while his narration of the world around him changed situationally.

All these characters were big as life. All of them. And they were all unpredictable, just like real people, which is the mark of an outstanding novel. I stopped trying to anticipate the action about halfway through the book. This is not a traditional story for being about something very common.

I love reading about East Tennessee. It's like noplace else. I loved seeing through Damon's eyes: the country of home, Knoxville, which isn't really a city compared to Nashville, where I grew up. (And then I moved to Indianapolis, which in 1999 made Nashville look like the neon tourist trap it was back then.) Nashville the heart-stopping-- Damon can't believe the L&C Tower or The Bat Building, which had just been built at the time of the book and I remember it going up.

I loved the good ol' boys. I loved the memaws and mamaws. I loved everybody except Dory. I couldn't even pity Dory I was so mad at her for being so stupid and for not even getting a chance not to be stupid.

I loved the way Kingsolver leaned in to the tension and shame of the average addict: I am in pain. I need help. Here is help. Finally, relief! No, not that relief! Well hell, now you're addicted and no one is coming to help. You will, however, be the butt of national jokes for a good long time, probably forever.

I appreciated the way Kingsolver showed the unbearable tension of prideful people as the second and third industrial revolutions swept through their coal infested corner of the world. You load sixteen tons and what do you get? A high school full of kids for whom books are pointless luxuries or useless objects, who are all cousins of some stripe, and who technically live large compared to their grandparents, but can't get it, because those revolutions have advanced the world so far and tipped it so greatly on the understood axis of the time and place, that everyone must flail for footing on his or her own, never daring to ask for help, from anyone.

Is that really how that's going to end? Will there be a sequel?

One last piece of the list: If it makes a difference, you should probably know that in East TN / Southern VA, the phrase, "I don't care to" means "yes." If you get confused, find that phrase and translate accordingly.