by Suzy Wilson
Barbara Kingsolver says that ‘You can’t beat Dickens for a good plot’ but after reveling in this tremendous, well crafted, utterly compelling novel, I would argue that it would also be pretty damn hard to beat Kingsolver for plot, or for nuanced characters and fabulous gritty writing. I loved my days reading this story.
Echoing Dickens, Kingsolver takes the David Copperfield story to Appalachia. This is country that she grew up in; it is in her bones, and her love of this place provides the powerful backdrop that gives the novel its strength.
Demon Copperhead is the reader’s hero. He is flawed - an orphan, a victim, a survivor - charismatic, and blessed with much artistic talent and sporting skill. I am not overstating it, I think, to say that Kingsolver makes in Demon one of the strongest lead characters in recent years. But there are other heroes in this story: some extraordinary teachers, a doctor, several members of the Peggott family and a couple of anti-heroes (Fast Forward and U-Haul) who are charismatic and ghastly in their own right.
It is a storm of a novel. It rages against the effects of endemic poverty, but particularly against pharmaceutical companies (Purdue* and others) and the oxy (Oxycontin) epidemic they delivered to the most vulnerable communities of America. I suspect the Sackler Oxy story is going to appear with relentless regularity in books and films (even the new Ted Lasso series has Rupert Mannion on a cruise with the Sacklers).
It is the characters who drive and ultimately make this novel outstanding, and they are with me still. We are all watching eagerly to see which prize lists this novel may pop up on in 2023.
*“Purdue Pharma has pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges twice, in 2007 and in 2020, based ondeceptive marketing that downplayed the risk of becoming addicted to OxyContin’. Sackler familymembers maintain they were unaware of wrongdoing by executives at the company.” NPR, 2022.