David Copperfield in Appalachia

What do Victorian London and 21st century Appalachia, during the height of the opioid crisis, have in common? Weird accents, obviously. Questionable fashion choices, no doubt. But according to Barbara Kingsolver, there’s much more, and she makes a convincing case in her 2023 Pulitzer winning novel, Demon Copperhead. There’s the complete disregard for people living in extreme poverty. There’s the refusal to acknowledge an economic system designed to keep them impoverished. And there’s the abandoned children who far outnumber the people capable of helping them. Those children are everywhere, and their circumstances are dire. Yet, somehow, this novel is about strength and resiliency. It has a heart and a funny bone – a rather small funny bone, but given the subject matter that also is an accomplishment.

The novel begins in the 1990s in Lee County, Virginia. If you go any further west, you’re in Kentucky or Tennessee. It’s the heart of Appalachia – remote, mountainous, and poor. Damon Fields was born between a coal camp and a settlement called Right Poor. His father died before he was born. It’s not an auspicious start, and it gets worse. His mother was an 18-years old single mom. She was also an addict, and a “kid born to the junkie is a junkie” as far as society is concerned.

When Damon’s red hair comes in, everyone calls him Demon Copperhead. This is a nod to the snake-handling Baptist preachers on his father’s side and to the copperhead snakes that infest the mountains. But Demon learns quickly the snakes that slither are far less dangerous than the snakes that walk. When his mother dies from an overdose, he is put in the cruel foster system where he is raised to be a “proud mule in a world that has scant use for mules.”

Eventually he is placed with an alcoholic high school football coach and his daughter, Angus, who perhaps is the person who cares most for him. Surprisingly Demon becomes a star high school football player. When he suffers a serious knee injury, the team doctor prescribes these little pain pills to “help” him. Within weeks Demon is addicted to opioids, like nearly every other child in Lee County. Angus wants to help, but “she is not in the business of throwing her life away so other people can stay shitfaced.”

Demon Copperhead is a thorough excoriation of how companies like Perdu Pharma cynically hooked nearly all of Appalachia on opioids – all while society looked the other way. Kingsolver sugarcoats nothing, and her portrayal of addiction’s ravages is searing. She won’t allow you to look the other way.

So the name Demon Copperhead reminds me a little of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. Is there any connection? Yes, but you get no points for that. In her acknowledgements, Kingsolver expresses gratitude to Charles Dickens for “writing David Copperfield, his impassioned critique of institutional poverty and its damaging effects on children in his society.” Aw, come on, I never get points for anything! OK. One pity point for you. Sweet.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor