The Curator: Charles Dickens meets the opioid crisis shit pile.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
I took an English elective course in my undergrad dedicated entirely to Dickens novels. All we did for ten full weeks was sit wedged into desks made for ants discussing what Dickens “really meant” when he wrote, “There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery”.
Don’t get me wrong I am very grateful for my [costly] higher education but the problem is I remember pretty much nothing about this class except Miss Havisham. And that might even be a result of watching too much South Park and not the original text.
Dickens’ novels were originally written as monthly serials, with each piece of the story dragged out like a Victorian Days of Our Lives. Since he had to get readers hooked like crooks showing up each month money out for the next installment, these serials were necessarily chock full of terrible tragedies and mishaps. Sometimes the tragedies occurred in such rapid succession you wondered if anything ever happened easily and without pain to anyone, ever. Other times the tragedies came crashing just as we’d been lulled into complacency by orphans finally being fed properly. Clearly, Victorians Lived. For. The. DRAMA.
The visiting lecturer teaching Dickens at UCSB was actually a favorite and I took plenty of his fun electives (shout out to this man I’ve forgotten your name forgive me for I am old and substance abuse-addled). But revisiting school nightmares is not my fav (re: Will I Have School Nightmares Forever?). While I appreciate a full dramatic plot, the relentless rollercoaster that is a Dickens novel is not what I usually call a good time. Thus, a reimagining of David Copperfield wouldn’t normally be at the top of my must-read list.
What IS at the top of my must-read list is a prize-winning book by a massive name in literature expertly dealing with the opioid crisis in a very clever way. Especially if everyone and their librarian have been pressuring me to read it.
So.
Today’s newsletter is dedicated to just one book, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead because not only did it win a Pulitzer Prize, it also took me an entire week to read. It’s a monumental achievement that deserves its own newsletter but also I just have nothing left to give. You take and take from me, Barbara!! The following book review is my exorcism. Enjoy.
FURTHER READING →
The BBC recently adapted Great Expectations, as the BBC does, into the nightmare explicit version of the story - this is “no Bridgerton”.
Check out ten surprising facts about Dickens so you too can know at what age he finally grew a beard!
“Selling Luxury Apartments Where Oliver Twist Once Asked for Gruel”. Oliver Twist is all of us, just hoping to be able to afford decent housing for the rest of our lives.
BOOK REVIEW →
I purchased Demon Copperfield on May 10 of this year. All through summer, it sat on the bench, overlooked for more approachable shelfmates. It’s not the longest book, nor the densest, nor the most difficult stylistically. But committing to this book felt like a formal contract with misery.
A misery ride of poverty, addiction, and child abuse.
A relentless catastrophe.
A true suffering soul that you, reader, cannot help.
Demon Copperhead is a modern reimagining of David Copperfield. Demon got himself born into poverty and addiction, stuck in the caul fighting to survive. This continues for the next 500 pages as Demon faces abuse, death, isolation, neglect, and addiction himself. All he knows is southern Appalachia and a community destroyed by the coal industry and then decimated by the opioid conspiracy with a fine layer of poverty.
The NYT calls it “a relentless chain of tragedies interrupted sporadically with minor victories” and that is accurate. My fear was not unfounded; I did feel terrible at times. Like any good downfall, each poor decision leads to the next like a slip ’n slide down a mountain; there was really only one outcome to begin with and all endings pointed to that muddy ass ditch.
Yet.
Here I am telling you that Demon Copperhead is deserving of every accolade, every praise, every positive review. It is worth reading now and probably again in 173 more years.
It’s the craft. The craft is remarkable. The craft saves this story from overwhelming despondency. There is redemption in the telling of this story.
Demon, like David, is a bildungsroman, a story of personal transformation in the face of harsh reality. In first-person narration, Demon reflects back on his childhood in a voice that captures the nuance of a child’s speech, the wisdom of hindsight, and the colloquial Appalachian dialect all layered into a truly unforgettable character. Reading before bed, I started dreaming in Demon.
Homegirl Lorraine Berry over at the Boston Globe calls it “poverty porn” and my first thought was - this isn’t A Little Life level ok? You don’t know what poverty porn IS! I found the novel to be sympathetic and caring without pity or performance. The subtext is there. Demon acknowledges his anger, his mistreatment, the unfairness without outwardly wallowing in despair, allowing us to experience the tough exterior, glimpse the brokenness, and watch what he chooses to do with it. The story is about a man-made, not a man-decided.
His life is a set of terrible circumstances, sure, but there is also hope and joy. He has friends, he finds a make-shift family, he gets moments of childhood back. He makes tiny arguments for rural living, for community, for the joy of running wild in nature as opposed to the intensity and isolation of big city life that show an appreciation for Appalachia not often offered:
If you asked me, her building was scarier than any sharks… There was no outside anywhere… Supposedly she had school friends with Nike Air Maxes… but where were they? Nowhere… They lived in Doom Castles. There was no running wild here.
Your big city money may be able to buy you fancy shoes, but for what? Running from inside place to inside place?
It’s also really fucking funny. Demon is a regular comedian, finding humor in the most wicked situations. His running commentary had me tabbing every other page. Even as he is repeatedly betrayed by those charged with his care, bullied or used for his body, Demon never fails to see through people like an x-ray.
Being friends with such people entailed listening to made-up problems to some degree. I could tolerate that, much more so than Angus. Girls can surprise you by knowing more than they’re letting on. Also for a guy it’s different. If you sit still and let your ears take all that girl business, other body parts may get their turn."
[Also part of the fun of reading Demon Copperhead is matching each character’s David Copperfield counterpart (my personal favorite Uriah Heep → Ryan “U-Haul” Pyles). Creativity spared no expense!]
Like I said, there is redemption. Demon is alive to tell the tale with humor and compassion. Not everything is terrible. There is hope.
How a 68-year-old white woman wrote a mixed-race redheaded Appalachian orphan boy into such exquisite existence, we might never know. But she did and you should read it. If for nothing except to be thankful for your own beautiful life.
Moodometer: For when you need another reason to hate the Sacklers and thank the heavens for writers.
Rating: I give this book a 5 Stars for Writers.
READING →
Since Demon took up my entire reading life this past week, I just have a bunch of hopefuls at the top of my mind.
Although the moody part of me wants it to be colder outside before I start reading, I am feeling serious FOMO for not having gotten to Rouge by Mona Awad on pub date.
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin because he writes weird deep dark shit and is therefore one of my top all-time favorite authors and…
As I keep chasing the high of Justin Cronin’s The Passage Trilogy, Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers keeps coming up to the top of my TBR. I’ve had it saved for later in like five different shopping carts for months. It sounds immersive and speculative and epic, just like The Passage.
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez - the paperback was just released, it’s PERFECT for spooky season, and the NYT calls it an “enchanting, shattering… reading experience”. This is pulling me hard, but I got suckered into entering a Goodreads giveaway so I’ll be waiting to see if I win that before purchasing (😬).
All of the new-ish books listed in the poll at the end of this post (please go vote!!).
WATCHING →
Fracture (2007) directed by Gregory Hoblit, starring two of my favorite on-screen men Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins. It’s a twisty tale with Gone Baby Gone meets The Lincoln Lawyer with a side of Devil’s Advocate vibes. Even though its grainy texture feels dated and Gosling’s baby face is a tit of a stretch for a supposedly top-notch seasoned DA, the dramatic tension and Hopkins in full-on creep mode kept me captivated.
NEWS→
The 2023 National Book Awards Longlist is out and the clamor’s equal to the sight of Timothy Chalamet canoodling with Kylie Jenner - who what now and how did this happen? No shade to the authors selected, but more on the obvious snubs (Lauren Groff, James McBride, Jesmyn Ward). Hunter Mclendon
wrote a wonderful piece on how it also makes it less exciting.Do you play Wordle? Or does Wordle play you? I play every single morning without fail and then send my results to my mother where we laugh at our hilarious routes to success (or failure). This article validates our addictions, even those that have spawned into several other “cutesy viral word game” addictions (Quordle, Murdle…).
NEW BOOKS →
include a historical fiction novel longlisted for the National Book Award, a novel about a single house in the woods of New England and its centuries of inhabitants, a new horror novel from a Bookstagam favorite, and a detective-y California debut novel.
→ Side Note: Katie @
’s new virtual Substack book club has selected North Woods as the inaugural title and this is one book club I may actually stick with based on the first taste test.RESTACK OF THE WEEK →
After reading hours upon hours of miserly-but-never-pitying Demon Copperhead, I appreciated the same vibes in this interview with a 40 years-sober artist. “Both of my parents were given up at birth, so our household had a major orphan vibe about it.”
LET’S CHAT →
This week, let me know what book you’d like to see reviewed in an upcoming newsletter because I need someone else to make my decisions for me.
In Case You Missed It 🖤
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See you around the bookshelf!
Natalie
NATALIE! Curses. You’ve done it again - heaped another one onto my TBR pile. Curses, I say!
I thought it was hilarious that you said it took you a week to read. I guess that’s a long time for you? Even in the “before times” (pre-🦠), I read slowly. Now, it’s downright glacial. Which only adds to my outrage at your adding to my pile, but I can’t be mad. You’re doing your thing ☺️
Thank you for the review—I’ve gone back and forth like you but will get this book and take it with me to read during a week in the Southern Smokies, where I grew up. Do you think the woman who called it poverty porn has ever lived in poverty? I bet not.
I am writing in a candidate for the what should you review next-ish question: Colton Whitehead’s Crook Manifesto. He has been criticized by one least one reviewer for writing another book about a character in Harlem in the 60s/70s, suggesting that Whitehead is not enough of a real bad-ass (the reviewer thinks he is) to write crime novels.