In second place, a book that the term tour de force could have been invented for. I’m not here to bring it to your attention – as winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Demon Copperhead is hardly under the radar. But I am here to tell you that this brilliant book is not (just) a worthy should-read: it’s a voicey, immersive rollercoaster you will not be able to resist.
A contemporary retelling of Dickens’ David Copperfield (hands up, haven’t read it) set in poor rural Appalachia (specifically Virginia), the protagonist is Demon: born dirt poor to a drug addict teenage mother in a trailer home. Demon doesn’t have great prospects, but what he does have is guts by the truckload. Smart, street-wise, witty, self-effacing, soft, he is the ultimate narrator, tugging us forward into this rackety land where cars rust by the side of the road, everyone knows the skin-shredding feel of tobacco plants harvested by hand from tiny tilted fields, the elation of the Friday night high school football game, and the lure of pain-easing, life-clouding opiates sliding into their systems.
Kingsolver has a clear mission to fight against the cultural and political abandonment of the Appalachian region, where she herself lives. Demon Copperhead is here to counter the lazy, dehumanising, deeply damaging degradation of the “redneck.” But Kingsolver is never preachy! Instead she makes each chapter so rich and compelling that the book’s considerable length becomes totally irrelevant. Because you’re reading to see what will become of Demon, rather than answering a more plotty-question, you don’t feel exhausted or lectured to: you’re simply on the ride of his life, and the company never falters.
This book has everything: bawdiness and depth; caricature and nuance; howls of protest and utmost tenderness; realism and overstatement. Written in a high conversational style, it might take a few chapters to settle into it (I found myself reading these half-aloud complete with a Southern accent; any evidence has been destroyed), but it will pay you back ten-fold. A should-read, a must-read, a can’t-stop-reading-it.
Room of Joy 