The Poisonwood Bible is one of my favorite books, as someone who has worked with missionaries and worked in Africa. But when I heard that Charles Dickens inspired her latest book, I knew I had to read it. Not a Christmas goes by that I don’t insist that my children and grandkids watch several versions of “The Christmas Carol”. And I’d read J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy not that long ago—so this made for a literary trifecta.
Dickens’ work helped Kingsolver overcome a bad case of writer’s block. She wanted to talk about orphans of an epidemic who became throwaway kids in a wealthy society. It took an ethereal visit from Dickens in his house in Broadstairs, where he said, “Look, nobody in my time wanted to hear about these orphans either, and I made them listen.” He went on to say,” Point of view is your tool. Let the child tell the story. And with that, Kingsolver started writing on his desk where Dickens had written David Copperfield.
The protagonist of this story is known as Demon Copperhead due to his fiery hair and fierce wit—born into poverty, addiction, and neglect, being passed from one foster home to another. His story is steeped in the despair of post-industrial rural America.
Despite the serious nature of the themes covered, the author employs Demon’s sarcasm and observational wit as both a coping mechanism and a narrative engine, as seen when he describes his social worker’s clipboard as “the magic want of doom,” which is both hilarious and chilling. His commentary on school lunches, football culture, and the absurdities he encounters in the foster care bureaucracy evokes constant comic relief, allowing the reader to laugh even as we wince.
Through Demon’s life story, Kingsolver dramatizes the opioid epidemic not as a backdrop but as a central antagonist. His descent into addiction is harrowing and unflinching. She shows that pharmaceutical greed, medical negligence, and systemic poverty conspire to destroy lives. The foster care system is depicted as a treadmill of exploitation, where children are shuffled, silenced, and seemingly forgotten, although it does not offer solutions, only the naked truth. She writes with both the clarity of a journalist and the emotional depth of a novelist.
As the daughter of a missionary, I was not surprised to see her explore how faith, both institutional and personal, can be both a source of solace and hypocrisy. Demon encounters religious leaders who offer platitudes more than help, but also moments of grace at the most unexpected times. She lets the power of religious conviction and the tension it causes to simmer below the surface.
At over 400 pages, this book could be a slog. Still, the prose propels the story forward; Demon’s magnetic voice and Kingsolver’s ability to shift seamlessly from tragedy to comedy, from introspection to action, ensure there are never dull moments. The first-person narration is immersive, giving the reader the feeling that we’re living alongside Demon. Until the very end, when he heads out towards the place he’s wanted to see his whole life, but never could, the ocean, with what could be the love of his life.
Critics have called it “a tour de force” (NPR), “a masterpiece of voice and vision” (Minneapolis Star Tribune), and “a novel that speaks for a new generation of lost boys”
As for J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, she sees it as a reductive and politically opportunistic portrayal of Appalachia. She went on to say that Demon Copperhead was partly written to counter the narrative that rural poverty is a result of personal failure. Instead, she shows how structural forces—economic, cultural, and political—shape lives from birth. Her novel is a rebuttal, a reclamation, and a love letter to a region that has been so often maligned.
Demon Copperhead is more than a retelling—it’s a reckoning. Kingsolver has taken Dickens’ blueprint and built a land of Appalachian truth, humor, and heartbreak. It’s a novel that demands to be read, remembered, and most of all, reckoned with.
The Author
Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times, she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia, where she currently resides.
Kingsolver was named one of the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, and in 2023 won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead. In 2000, she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been adopted into the core curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. Critical acclaim for her work includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, a James Beard Award, a two-time Oprah Book Club selection, and the National Book Award of South Africa, among others. She was awarded Britain’s prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) for both Demon Copperhead and The Lacuna, making Kingsolver the first author in the history of the prize to win it twice. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
She has two daughters, Camille (born 1987) and Lily (born 1996). She and her husband, Steven Hopp, live on a farm in southern Appalachia where they raise an extensive vegetable garden and Icelandic sheep.
The Reviewer
Mark D Walker was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala and spent over forty years helping disadvantaged people in the developing world. Walker’s three books are Different Latitudes: My Life in the Peace Corps and Beyond, My Saddest Pleasures: 50 Years on the Road, named Best Travel Book, and The Guatemala Reader: Extraordinary Lives and Amazing Stories. He’s written 80 book reviews, and of his 30 published essays, two were recognized by the Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing. He’s a contributing writer for “The Wanderlust Journal,” “Literary Traveler,” and “The Great Writers You Should be Reading.” His wife and three children were born in Guatemala. You can learn more at www.MillionMileWalker.com