DEMON COPPERHEAD (2022)
By Barbara Kingsolver
Harper, 546 pages.
★★
Demon Copperhead, the new novel from Barbara Kingsolver, reveals several things. First, Ms. Kingsolver can really write, but we know that. Second, she can spin a story chocked full of characters. We know that too. Third, she’s a big fan of Dickens, which maybe you didn’t know. Fourth, she’s no Charles Dickens.
Kingsolver was raised in Kentucky, but now lives in Virginia, which is where Demon Copperhead is set, the Goochland area of Lee County to be exact. It’s rural and there are namesake reptiles around, but the title references protagonist and narrator Damon Fields. Many of the characters go by handles that riff off their birthnames, hence Damon is “Demon” and “Copperhead" his red hair. Kingsolver’s novel is an adaptation of David Copperfield refashioned as crises in the contemporary Southern Appalachians. It’s a clever idea, but it trips over one of its objectives, breaking the stereotype that the region isn’t inhabited by ignorant hillbillies.
If you can’t stomach children in jeopardy, adults amorally using kids for their own purposes, an entire county addicted to drugs, death at an early age, and failed social systems, you should steer clear of Demon Copperhead. Demon was almost never born. His teenaged addict mother passed out on the kitchen floor, went into labor, and expelled her son still trapped inside the amniotic sac. Given what happens to him over the next several decades you might conclude it would have merciful had he not been rescued by next-door neighbor Mrs. Peggot. Like Copperfield, Demon becomes a ward of society at an early age. His tribulations make those Copperfield seem almost cheerful by contrast.
Kingsolver’s Lee County is populated by those with nicknames and traits that mirror those in Dickens: Demon’s evil stepfather Murrell Stone (“Stoner”) is Dickens’ Murdstone; his best friend Matt (“Maggot”) is Ham Peggotty; the scheming McCobb foster family is the Micawbers; the cruel Mr. Crickson (“Creaky”) is borstal headmaster Mr. Creakle; Mrs. Peggot is Clara Peggotty crossed with Mrs. Gummidge; foster home friend Tommy is Tommy Waddles; the oily “U-Haul” is Uriah Heep; Sterling Ford (“Fast Forward”) is a down-market James Steerforth; Demon’s grandmother Betsy Woodall and her brother “Mr. Dick” are Betsey Trotwood and Richard Babley; Demon’s first wife Dori Spencer is Dickens’ Dora Spenlow and his second love Agnes (“Angus”) Winfield is Agnes Wickfield. You'll find numerous other near-pairings. Kingsolver’s most original idea is to make Demon a Melungeon, a white/black/native mixed race common in that section of Virginia.
Homage can be tricky. There are modern twists in Demon Copperhead–OxyContin/fentanyl addiction, a gay character, a Southeast Asian storekeeper, an interracial couple, cartoons and graphic novels, football at the expense of health and education, disappearing jobs, sexism, Walmart, dollar stores, appalling diets–but the storyline remains that of Dickens. Therein lies several problems. I adored the first few hundred pages of the novel but at some point, it begins to read as if it's a sociological expose of Southern poverty and, by extension, regional inhabitants. When six-year-old Demon comments, “I was inked with the shitprints of life: thrashings, lies told, days on getting peaced out on weed, months of going hungry,” it feels as if he speaks for everyone in the county.
Dickensian humor is sorely lacking. Kingsolver has eccentric characters, but few funny ones, which Dickens used to relieve despair. The McCobbs are not like the Micawbers, nor Mrs. Peggot a risible “poor lone creature” like Mrs. Gummidge. We feel sorry for Demon and his cohort, but none possess Copperfield’s essential goodness. Overall, there are very few sympathetic characters, especially on the adult side of the ledger. Readers will notice that aside from Mr. and Mrs. Peggot and their daughter Jane, the adults are uniformly awful. Indeed, the bulk of the book’s characters are so feral that one could conclude that the region is dominated by drug-addled rednecks.
Is Kingsolver offering verisimilitude or exaggerated sensationalism? There’s no faulting Kingsolver’s prose; she expertly captures the inner thoughts of a posturing-but-scarred youngster, makes readers recoil in horror, and is positively elegiac in describing the landscape. Mostly, though, she drags us through the mud. Perhaps your constitution is stronger than mine, but I felt like I needed a week of hot showers to wash away feelings of hopelessness. Dickens’ novel runs 624 pages and Kingsolver’s 556, but hers feels as if it’s twice that length. By the time we finish, Kingsolver’s semblance of a happy ending rings false–quite unlike David Copperfield’s triumph.
Rob Weir
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