I got caught up in telling her all this and almost forgot my messed-up life, because in some ways she was worse off than me. She’d never seen a lightning bug. That is just tragic. I told her the different ones. One kind goes totally dark, then they all blink together, thousands, one big sparkly pop all up and down the creek. It can thrill a preson senseless.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

This was a rollercoaster of emotion! I read this Bookclub pick without knowing much of it other than its set in the ‘Redneck’ are of the USA, not that I am too educated on the specifics as a german citizen (other than the occasional joke on them in TV shows or movies we don’t really have any conncetion to that or wisdom of it).

In ‘Demon Copperhead’, a fictional memoir, we follow the life of Demon, a young boy and half orphan living with his mother in a trailer in the Appalachians of Southern Virginia. Demon learns from very early in life that there is a lot of hardships and pain in trying to getting by and simply just being in this world. Without wanting to give any spoilers here let’s just say that things will get even more strenuous for our main character.

Barbara Kingsolver manages to write in such an elusive writing style that I felt captivated to keep on reading and reading (you know the drill: ‘just one more chapter’ until itis 3 in the morning). The beauty of the language collides with the harsh reality of Demons live and serves as a beautiful contrast. In that regard it reminded me a lot of Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ which is one of my all time favourite books and my definite favourite for 2023 so far, although ‘Demon Copperhead’ is not far behind.

Kingsolver also manages to picture all the happenings from the view of our main character while at the same time giving room to other, maybe differing views from the side characters that are present in Demon’s life. The characters in itself are very coherent in itself and seem so realistic and complex in their humanness, which I always favour. Character Development is huge in a way although at times you feel the heavy burden of seemingly deterministic outcomes in peoples life capturing in a very sophisticated way the feeling of being trapped in your life and life course. Drug abuse is another big topic that Kingsolver manages to incorporate in a sensible way into her work.

In the end this book not only is a disturbing tale of the modern american way of life in regards to the rural and poor regions, but also a story of friendship, belonging and self worth as well as heartwarming descriptions of ones love to nature. For this it is not only a very up-to-date read but also one that stirrs on the deep emotions we all cary in us. I cried a lot reading this book as well as laughed (although way more crying than laughing was involved, keeping it honest here). It references to Charles Dickens ‘David Copperfield’ and I can see the similarities, but this book stands as its own as a great work of modern fiction.

Trigger warning (for the book): mentioning of sexual assault; drug use; physical violence; stalking; emotional violence and verbal abuse