An instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller and a #1 Washington Post bestseller, Demon Copperhead is an Oprah Book Club Selection. It is author Barbara Kingsolver’s tenth bestseller! Ron Charles wrote in the Washington Post of this novel, “May be the best novel of 2022. . . .Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love.” This novel is told in the voice of Damon Fields, a red head born in a trailer in Lee County, Virginia, to a mother who is an addict. Early on, he acquires the nickname, Demon Copperhead. The setting is thus the very Appalachian county where the author, Barbara Kingsolver has lived for decades on a farm with her professor husband. In her acknowledgements, Kingsolver writes. “I am grateful to Charles Dickens for writing David Copperfield, his impassioned critique of institutional poverty and its damaging effect on children in his society.” “An epic…brimming with vitality and outrage….the rare 560-page book you wish would never end.” — People "Book of the Week" “With its bold reversals of fate and flamboyant cast, this is storytelling on a grand scale. . . . As Demon discovers, owning his story – every part of it – and finding a way to tell it is how he’ll wrest some control over his life. And what a story it is: acute, impassioned, heartbreakingly evocative, told by a narrator who’s a product of multiple failed systems, yes, but also of a deep rural landscape with its own sustaining traditions.” — The Guardian. “In Demon Copperhead…Kingsolver channels the voice of a disenfranchised boy lost in the failures of our social system. It's a testament to her storytelling mastery that this novel also illustrates how deeply intertwined our attitudes about nature are with our collective destiny. As always, her purpose is to make us think about the ways we all must look out for each other.” — Arizona Republic. “Absorbing . . . Readers see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath Demon’s self-protective exterior. . . . Emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. . . . An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.” — Kirkus Review (Starred Review). “A deeply evocative story…Kingsolver’s account of the opioid epidemic and its impact on the social fabric of Appalachia is drawn to heartbreaking effect. This is a powerful story, both brilliant in its many social messages regarding foster care, child hunger, and rural struggles, and breathless in its delivery.” — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review). “This novel is surely a highpoint of Kingsolver’s long career and a strong early candidate for next year's Booker Prize.” — Times Literary Supplement.
New York: Harper/HarperCollins, 2022. 560 pages. Hardback in dust jacket.