Demon CopperheadDemon Copperhead
What it's about
Dickens's David Copperfield, moved to the mountains of Lee County, Virginia, in the 1990s and 2000s. Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon, is born in a single-wide trailer to a teenage mom and grows up as every system fails him: foster homes, child labor on a tobacco farm, a shot at high school football glory, and the painkillers flooding his town. He tells it all himself, years later, in a voice that's wisecracking, furious and big-hearted. It's a coming-of-age epic set against the opioid crisis.
Why it's worth reading
Demon is one of the great narrators of recent fiction: funny, furious and impossible not to root for. Kingsolver writes about Appalachia with love and without pity, and the book makes a national tragedy feel personal.
You'll love it if you liked
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath or Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Good to know
It's long and covers addiction, neglect and abuse, but the voice keeps it moving and often laugh-out-loud. If the first 50 pages hook you, you'll finish it.
By the numbers
- Critics80 out of 100 · counts 35%+32
- Readers95 out of 100 · counts 50%+54
- Buzz37 out of 100 · counts 15%+6
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2023). On the NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list. 4.46★ from 923K Goodreads ratings.
Where it ranks
- #2 of the 216 literary novels we rank
- #2 of the 256 historical novels we rank
- #2 of the 730 new books we rank
- #2 of the 1,344 books we rank
Won
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2023)
Shortlisted
- Goodreads Choice (fiction) finalist (2022)
On the lists
- NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
Reads as
Moving
