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Written By Kate M
Book: Demon Copperhead
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Edition: Hardcover, HarperCollins
Barbara Kingsolver doesn’t tell a story in Demon Copperhead, she allows the reader to walk with Demon through his own story. Oddly I had a hard time warming up to this novel. I read half the book and wasn’t connecting. I almost gave up on it, and didn’t because I so enjoyed Kingsolver’s previous books. As I closed the book, I was so glad I had kept reading— Wow!
Despite the horror and sadness of watching a train wreck that you can’t turn away from, I loved the second half of the book. Demon’s writing style— for by the end I truly felt that Demon was writing this novel, rather than Kingsolver— got into my head. I could hear him talking directly to me in each sentence. I walked with him from his birth through foster homes, and onto a football field into addiction, his people-wisdom and caring far outpacing his academics. I was there beside him on the slippery, rocky cliff above Devil’s Bathtub in a torrential downpour. I often forgot how young he was given his depth of understanding of the traumas dealt out to everyone he knew in Lee County. I appreciated how he shared the complicated lives of ex-miners, their children, their addictions, their resilience, their challenges and their fierce family love all intertwined in Appalachia.
Note that this guide, like all of the guides, may contain spoilers. I recommend reading the book before the guide.
Kingsolver lives in southwest Virginia, which she characterizes as ground zero for the opioid epidemic. She loves southern Appalachia and considers it part of her mission to, as she puts it,
“represent my people accurately, respectfully and with nuance, because Appalachians do not get good representation in the world and in the nation, in mainstream media.”
Interviews with the author
More a conversation than an interview, Ezra Klein shares a one hour conversation with Barbara Kingsolver on Appalachia. If you have Apple Podcasts or a New York Times subscription, I highly recommend this podcast, with or without reading the book. She talks about how she is an ambassador between Appalachia and folks who know nothing about Appalachia, sharing the beauty of the close-knit community. She talks about the importance of exposure to and having relationships with folks who are difference from you. She hoped that by portraying addiction fthe disease of addiction.
I enjoyed listening to Barbara Kingsolver speak as a guest of the Georgia Center for the Book. In her conversation with the audience she talks about how she wanted to tell the complex story of what the opioid epidemic has done to a generation of kids who have been orphaned by opioid-use disorder. To tell that story she turned to Charles Dickens because orphans and structural poverty were his wheelhouse. She says that Dickens told her that she needed to let the child tell the story, nobody doubts the child.
In her conversation as a guest of Georgia Center for the Book, Kingsolver reads from the novel. She talks about wanting readers to come out with new ideas and new compassion and the psychology of how we as humans find truth. She talks about how outsiders look down upon people in Appalachia and the unconscious bias toward them, sharing her feelings about language, representing the rural south and the complexity of that community. She believes that literature can create empathy, saying,
“I believe reading literature is a project of creating empathy in ourselves. And I believe that empathy and compassion for the stranger is what will save us.”
I recommend watching this conversation on YouTube.
If you prefer a written interview, here are two that I recommend that go beyond writing style and Kingsolver’s life and offer ideas that might expand your reflection of the messages in the novel.
In an interview with Slate Magazine, Kingsolver talks in detail about the writer’s ethical domain— a great conversation for nearly any book discussion and one that Kingsolver talks about head on. She also talks about the outrage she brings to her novels and that a novel can engage with the issues of the world, which Demon Copperfield does directly.
In an interview with A! magazine, Kingsolver talks both about her writing inspiration and process, along with the hopes she has for the region and her hopes for creating empathy for the residents of Appalachia in her readers.
Appalachia
If you aren’t familiar with Appalachia, get to know it. The boundaries for Appalachia were defined in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. Portions of 13 states make up Appalachia including all of West Virginia. There is significant cultural variation across the region. There is an Appalachia subreddit (of course there is, what isn’t on reddit!). In it there are lots of photos as well as a short thread on folks responding to the question “do you see yourself as Appalachian and if so how.”
While you may have read this novel because you prefer developing empathy through a novel rather than delving into facts and figures, sometimes it’s helpful to have some figures at hand. Opioids in Appalachia The Role of Counties in Reversing an Epidemic, shares facts and recommendations on strengthening local response to the opioid epidemic along with case studies of what has been done in counties there.
Appalachia and classism
Time magazine’s The Demonization of Rural America shares how many people show prejudice against the people of Appalachia. The article is a short read and may open a conversation on raising awareness of where this prejudice is apparent— from interactions you’ve witnessed, article you’ve read or even your own conversations.
Demon Copperhead (Damon Fields by birth): Narrator, born in the late 1980s in Lee County (southwest Virginia) who is orphaned as a child
Mom: Demon’s mom
Mrs. Nance Peggot: Next door neighbor to Demon
Mr. Peggot: Husband of Nancy Peggot and former miner
Maggot (Mathew) Peggot: grandson of Peggots, mom (Mariah Peggot) in prison for assaulting Maggot’s abusive dad (Romeo) with a knife
Aunt June Peggot: nurse and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peggot, moves back to Lee County because she sees the medical need there
Emmy Peggot: daughter of a dead Peggot uncle. Adopted by Aunt June
Stoner (Murrell Stone): Mom’s second husband and abusive partner and step-parent
Miss Barks: Demon’s first case worker
Creaky (Mr. Crickson): Demon’s first foster guardian who has foster kids to do his farm work
Tommy Waddles: foster orphan at Creaky’s and later writing partner with Demon
Swap-Out: Small foster orphan at Creaky’s
Fast Forward (Sterling Ford): older foster child at Creaky’s and Generals quarterback, drug dealer
Hammerhead Kelly: raised by his step-mom Ruby, June’s sister and Emmy’s boyfriend
Mr. and Mrs. McCobb: Demon’s second foster parents who are poor and need the DSS payments
Brayley and Hallie: McCobb’s children
Mr. Golly (actually Mr. Ghali): Indian immigrant, owner of the Golly mini mart where Demon works the trash pile in fifth grade
Miss Betsy Woodall: Demon’s grandmother (father’s mother)
Mr. Dick: Miss Betsy’s brother who was born with a spinal deformity and flies kites with phrases from books he reads as a thank you to the author (I like that idea!)
Jane Ellen: high school student and one of the eleven girls Miss Betsy raised and educated
Coach Winfield: coach of Lee High Generals and Demon’s foster-type parent
U-Haul Pyles: assistant to Coach and Demon’s nemesis
Angus: Coach’s daughter
Mattie Kate: Coach’s housekeeper and cook
Mr. Briggs: JV football coach
Lewis Armstrong:guidance counselor and English teacher at Jonesville Middle
Ms. Annie: art teacher and Lewis Armstrong’s spouse
Martha Coldiron: Maggot’s close friend in middle school
Kent: pharmaceutical salesman and initially Aunt June’s boyfriend
Linda Larkins: older sister of a one of Angus’ homework club classmates who calls Demon for phone sex
Donnamarie: cashier at Farm Supply
Rose Dartell: Fast Forward’s adopted sister till he was 9 and was “unadopted”
Big Bear Howe: Left tackle on the Generals while Fast Forward was quarterback
Mouse: Northener who works in TV and deals drugs with Fast Forward
Vester Spence: owner of Farm Supply
Dori Spence: Vester’s daughter, Demon’s lover and addict
Doc Watts: football team doctor and first to give Demon Oxycontin
As with so many novels, a book discussion of Demon Copperhead can go many different directions. While there is certainly a lot to talk about with a comparison to David Copperfield, I don’t focus on that aspect of the novel in these topics. I prefer to help readers explore connections we can each make to our own lives as we read and what we can do to change the injustices that Barbara Kingsolver explores.
External views of Appalachia
One of the focal points of the novel is how outsiders view Appalachia and the stereotypes that are perpetrated about the people who live there.
Demon muses often about how he and his neighbors are viewed, for instance,
“These people and vegetarians and so forth that are all about being fair to the races and the gays, I am down with that. I agree. But would it cross any mind to be fair to us? No, it would not. How do I know? TV. The comedy channel is so funny it can make you want to go unlock the gun cabinet and kill yourself.” page 317
This is one of the many times Demon talks about how people talk condescendingly to and about people who live in Appalachia. In her conversation sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book, Kingsolver talks about this condescension in response to a question from the audience. The participant asks how liberal ideas can be made more appealing in Appalachia.
Kingsolver responds that people in Appalachia feel like outsiders start every sentence about them with “you idiot”.[minute 47]
She also says,
“Something I wanted to accomplish with this book is to show readers who are not from Appalachia how tiresome it is to be looked down on all the time, to be dismissed all the time, to be invisible in a mainstream American culture.”[minute 51]
She goes to say that when people are traumatized it’s hard to perceive nuance— either you’re on my side or you’re not on my side.
How would you react if other people spoke condescendingly of your views, your lifestyle, your person? How can we change things up and get to know folks who have a different lifestyle than we do? Where has your opinion of a group of people been changed by getting to know just one individual of that group? How have others changed their opinion of you and how they speak about you by getting to know you? How can we make this happen on a large-scale?
Demon’s view of cities from his visit to Knoxville as a child is interesting in its juxtaposition with the stereotypes the reader is presented with about folks living Appalachia.
“I’m going to say though, the news was bad all around, murders being only one aspect. From TV, I’d always thought people in cities have it made. Not true. The cold snap finally hit while we were there, and the news showed all these hard-luck cases trying to get in the library, bus station etc. To sleep. Like they didn’t have relatives. I mean, it sucks to barge in on people that don’t really want you. But you’ve not seen the like of these sad individuals with nobody to barge in on, and nothing to eat. Because where are you even going to steal an apple off a tree? In the city if you’re out of money you are screwed, no two ways about it.” page 123
Where have you seen this contrast when you’ve gotten to know a new community? Where have some of the values and benefits you’ve come to know in your community, been more starkly apparent in contrast to how others live? How can we value and uphold the positive aspects of a community while working to repair the traumas?
Language and disrespect
In particular the language used by outsiders to describe people who live in Appalachia is derogatory both in the book and in the United States.
“Hillybilly is a word everybody knows. Except they don’t.” page 68
“And other people made up hillbilly to use on us, for the purpose of being assholes. But they gave us a superpower on accident… The world is not at all short on this type of thing, it turns out. All down the years, words have been flung like pieces of shit, only to get stuck on a truck bumper with up-yours pride. Rednecks, moonshiners, ridge runners, hicks. Deplorables.” page 69
In her conversation sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book, Kingsolver shares how she was careful using words like holler and reckon, that are often looked down upon by outsiders. In particular she was careful not to use these words at the start of the novel.
What terms are you familiar with that are used to denigrate a group? How have you heard those terms used? When have you used these words either aware or unaware of their power to hurt? How did it feel to use these words? Have any been used on you and your people? When have you seen those words turned around to be a superpower?
Where you get your truth from
Demon puts it this way,
“The buyers were telling us the cancer thing was a scare, not proven. Another case of city people trash-talking us and our hard work, like anything else we did to feed ourselves: raising calves for slaughter, mining our coal, shooting Bambi with our hunting rifles.” page 103
Of note: I did find the introduction to this section confusing. Cigarette ads were banned in the United States on January 1, 1971, well before Demon was born, so not sure what he is referring to with respect to the “cigarette ads stopped playing.”
In her talk, Kingsolver talks about the psychology of how we, as humans, find truth.
“We all decide what to believe not based on evidence, none of us do that unless we are scientists… We take truths from sources we trust, our parents if we are children, our peers if we are teenagers, our television station, our radio… We take truths from our pastor, from the patriarch or matriarch of our family, the people who we perceive to be on our team, you know, on our side, looking out for our best interests and so we choose our radio stations and our TV stations and our newspapers the same way, these people are my people, they’re looking out for me… The only way to cross those boundaries… when you speak to someone who believes different truths from you, they’re not going to listen to anything unless they feel respected, they feel they can trust you, they feel like you’re on their team.”[minute 48]
What do you think? Where do you get your truths from? When have you tried to “cross boundaries” as Kingsolver put it?
Thinking back to conversations you’ve had with folks who believe different truths from you, when were you most successful in having a productive conversation, even if no minds were changed? How were you treated by the other person? How did they treat you?
Opioid addiction
The trauma in this book and in Appalachian communities begins when children are young. Demon tries to share that these children aren’t making choices, they are still children.
“A ten-year old getting high on pills. Foolish children. This is what we’re meant to say: Look at their choices, leading to a life of ruin. But lives are getting lived right now, this hour, down in the dirty cracks between the toothbrused nighty-nights and the full grocery carts, where those words don’t pertain. Children, choices. Ruin, that was the labor and materials we were given to work with. An older boy that never knew safety himself, trying to make us feel safe. We had the moon in the window to smile on us for a minute and tell us the world was ours. Because all the adults had gone off somewhere and left everything in our hands.” page 76
Demon shares how we so often blame the victim. We don’t bring compassion forward.
How can we get to a place of compassion? How do you see the multi-layered complexity of trauma in a place like Lee County and bring compassion to the forefront? Where does one begin in rethinking what solutions are viable? What part can someone play who is far from that region? Perhaps you, as a reader, in a far-off city? What is your role, or is there one, in changing the system that created this trauma?
Demon first learns about OxyContin when his mom overdoses on it.
“OxyContin, God’s gift for the laid-off deep-hole man with his back and neck bones grinding like bags of gravel. For the bent-over lady pulling double shifts at Dollar General with her shot knees and ADHD grandkids to raise by herself. For every football player with some of this or that torn up, and the whole world riding on his getting back in the game. This was our deliverance. The tree was shaken and yes, we did eat of the apple.” page 112
The doctor that prescribed it to Louise Lamie, customer service manager at Walmart, told her this pill was safer than safe.” page 112
Opioids in Appalachia states how opioids got such a strong foothold in Appalachian between the growth of the prescription painkiller industry starting in the 1990s and socioeconomic factors including poverty, poor health, low educational attainment and changes to the labor force.
Have you seen the impact of opioid addiction in your family? In your community? What were the factors that aggravated the spread?
What are some of the structural and systemic changes that people have tried to stem the tide of opioid addition in your locale? Which ones worked? Which were unsuccessful? How were you made aware of these changes and were you a participant in helping to institute change?
Choices available
"Where does the road to ruin start? That’s the point of getting all this down, I’m told. To get the handle on some choice you made. Or was made for you.” page 332
What do you think? Where have choices been made for you? Where have you succumbed to a poor choice made on your behalf? When have you been able to break out and make your own, positive choices?
“But where did it come from, this wanting disease? From how I got born, or the ones that made me, or the crowd I ran with later?” page 281
How much of who you have become is nature and how much do you think is nurture?
In school Demon learns about the history of coal in the region from Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong posits,
What the companies did, he told us, was put the shuthole on any choice other than going into the mines… Nobody needed to get all that educated for being a miner, so they let the schools go to rot. And they made sure no mills or factories got in the door. Coal only. To this day, you have to cross a lot of ground to find other work.” page 280
Is this an aspect of Appalachia that you had thought about, that while individuals do have the opportunity to make choices for better or worse, there are also places where those choices have intentionally been limited by how things are structured? In the wider world, where do you see the choices being intentionally restricted for folks, only “this or that”? Where do you see individuals and groups creating resistance to poor leadership, working to change deficient and corrupt systems that limit choices?
The foster system
In addition to Appalachia and the opioid epidemic, Demon Copperhead has at its core a look at the foster system.
Demon describes his experiences directly,
“So fostering was done by companies, and we, as Stoner would say, were Product. Rotating and merchandising foster boys at more than fifty customer accounts. Live and learn.” page 79
And talks about the foster children when they are younger as
“We were our own messed-up little drive. A squadron.” page 80
And then when Fast Forward, Maggot, Emmy and Demon have an unsuccessful journey to see the ocean, Demon reflects,
“I’d had some of the same kindness, the Peggots, Miss Betsy, Coach. And Fast Forward’s story, the same. Many had tried their best with us, but we came out of too-hungry mothers. Four demons spawned by four different starving hearts.” page 385
Do you know children who’ve had traumatic experiences in the foster system— living with families who are less interested in the child and more interested in the check? Do you know someone who was orphaned and adopted and had parents who tried to get the best counseling and education and supports for their kiddos and the kiddos still were struggling mightily? Have you seen successes in adoption of children who have had traumatic experiences very early in life?
Have you ever been a part of the foster system whether as a child or as an adult working or volunteering within the system? What do you know of how well or poorly run your local foster system is? What are some of the systematic challenges in creating a well-functioning system for children who cannot live with their parents? Where have you seen those challenges overcome?
An author’s responsibility on representation
Who authors can represent in the novels they write is a topic that many authors and others explore. Both writers and readers are thinking about who is doing the writing and the rights they have in representing those demographics. Kingsolver says that if we could only write about ourselves and our own experience we would only have autobiographies. And she goes one to say that she likes writing about things when worldviews collide, so who gets to write that?
Kingsolver has her own rules as an author for the stories she can tell and how she can tell them when it comes to writing outside of her demographic. For starters, she tries not to usurp a story that would be better told by someone else. As she writes a story she allows herself to write characters from the inside that she represents. For characters that are outside of her culture, she only writes from the outside— what they look like, the food they cook, how they dress, how they talk. For instance in The Poisonwood Bible, she did not write what it felt like to be Congolese.
Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other, says, “that’s what we do as writers, we write beyond our experience.”
In a Penguin Podcast, Evaristo shares her perspective on writing outside of her experience. This is how she put it,
“I was aware that it was a risk, but I also feel that I am completely entitled to write any story I want in whatever way I want and if there are consequences to that I will deal with them but I’m not going to be scared off… people are afraid to step beyond their own kind of demographic in case they’re going to be attacked for getting it wrong. And I would suggest that sometimes there is no right or wrong about it, if you are creating fictional characters you can create the kind of fictional character that you want.”
What do you think? Where have you seen authors write beyond their own experiences successfully and unsuccessfully? How have the novels you’ve read been enriched by an author who writes authentically of the experience of the characters? When has an author writing outside of their experiences fallen short and when have they succeeded?
Value of stories
“a good story doesn’t just copy life, it pushes back on it.” page 520
So true! This is one of those times when I felt like I was hearing the author rather than Demon. Certainly I feel that Demon Copperhead is pushing back on life— showing us as readers the destruction wrought in Appalachia by the opioid epidemic, showing us how the system can play a larger role than personal choices, and how children may not get the chance to be raised by adults who can teach them about making good choices. And ideally, taking it to action— how readers can increase their compassion and in turn, share their voices and their energy in supporting changes.
“ I believe reading literature is a project of creating empathy in ourselves. And I believe that empathy and compassion for the stranger is what will save us” — Barbara Kingsolver in her conversation sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book. minute 1:26
and she goes on to say,
“We read to live other lives… When I represent Appalachia I want to ensure it’s a nuanced picture”
Demon Copperhead has a sad teenage addicted mother and her abusive boyfriend, alongside the Mammaw that takes care of everyone, her husband who teaches his grandkids the beauty of the natural world, and Aunt June, an amazing nurse practitioner who moves back to Lee County because she knows she is needed there. It’s important that she gives us the ecosystem of characters— those who are functioning well and the caretakers.
Why do you read? How did this story push back on life in your reading? What books have you found particularly effective in pushing back on life and which books have you enjoyed for their sheer escapism? Has a book ever inspired you to take a new path or change things up or even to simply learn more about something you knew little about?
Our Missing Hearts is also a novel that delves into the stories we need to share to connect with one another. It would be a great pairing with Demon Copperhead both on storytelling and the separation of children from their families as that separation is central in each novel in very different ways.
Natural environment
The beauty of the natural environment in southwest Virginia is woven throughout Kingsolver’s writing.
“Then we sat in the shade listening to what all was going on up in the trees. Birds having their discussions, a woodpecker making his little tack-tack-tacks, this whole other life of little beings out here minding their business and not actually going a damn about yours. It could set you back on your haunches, in a good way. Why I liked the woods.” page 83
“Here it was. The sun coming down through tall trees in long waterfalls of light, the birds starting up their evening songs. There’s one like water trilling over rocks, pretty enough to make you cry.” page 414
This is a common thread across her novels, most especially in Flight Behavior.
Where do you find your natural environment? What sounds, smells, sights or textures focus your attention? Where have you seen this beauty in the wilderness and where have you seen it in urban areas? Often folks who aren’t familiar with urban areas miss the natural beauty that can be found in cities. You need to look in the right places.
How do you share this beauty with others? Through your presence, photography, writing, drawing, poetry, activism? There are so many ways that we can each connect to our natural environment and we can help others connect as well.
Other quotes
“Good people, bad people, what does that even mean? Get down to the rock and the hard place, and we’re all just soft flesh and the weapon at hand.” page 329
outsiderschoicesaddictionlanguagestoriesfosterrepresentationnatural worldtruthabusesurvivorDemon Copperhead
Kate Mhttps://marmaladeandmustardseed.com