Storytelling In Appalachia
In 2023, for the first time in its history, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was shared by two novels: "Trust" by Hernan Diaz and "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver. Our book group has been reading the two novels in successive months: "Trust" last month and "Demon Copperhead" for February. It was challenging to read both novels together, to have the opportunity to discuss them in a group, and to review them.
The two books have widely different settings. "Trust" is set in New York City at around the time of the Great Depression and deals in large part with the worlds of high finance and high culture. The main character, Andrew Bevel, is a financier born to wealth who amasses still further riches during the course of the book. The book is told in conflicting narratives of the events it recounts by four different authors, including Bevel himself and his wife Mildred, also a product of the upper-class.
"Demon Copperhead" is set in the early 21st Century, largely in Lee County, Virginia and in other sections of Appalachia. The country is poor, rural, and in the midst of a consuming opioid and drug epidemic. The story is a coming-of -age novel told in the first person by its narrator from his birth through early adulthood. As the title suggests, the novel makes extensive allusions to Charles Dickens's great novel, "David Copperfield".
I have had some experience with Appalachia which stoked my interest in this book. My late wife spent a great deal of her childhood in Letcher County, Kentucky and I learned a great deal from her about life in the area, particularly the coal mining and the poor farming. Several vacations took us through parts of Appalachia, including a trip to Letcher County and its towns. This trip took us through the portion of western Virginia in which Demon Copperhead grew up. On another vacation, we spent time at Hungry Mother State Park in western Virginia and its environs. Hungry Mother plays a prominent role in the book as Demon Copperhead stops there with some companions in the middle of a failed journey by car to see the Atlantic Ocean. In the book, Copperhead has a lifelong fascination with the sea which he has never seen. It was good to be reminded in Kingsolver's novel of Appalachia and of places I have seen including Hungry Mother State Park.. I also was reminded of some reading on Appalachia, including Horace Kephart's classic study "Our Southern Highlanders" (1913) which offers a different picture of the region that does Kingsolver in her novel.
The story Demon Copperhead has to tell is unremittingly harsh, beginning with his birth to a poor, drug-addicted young woman, abandoned by her husband who subsequently dies. The book follows Demon through his many misadventures and journeys through cruel foster homes through a road trip he takes at the age of 11 to find his grandmother, and through his life in a small Virginia town where he briefly becomes a star on the football team. With a serious knee injury which does not receive proper treatment, Demon becomes addicted to opioids. The story is full of squalor. Yet, Demon has a sharp mind, great powers of observation, and an ability to rise above his many difficulties. He also has artistic talent. The book follows him through good times and bad as he tries to make something of his life.
This lengthy novel features a large cast of characters, some of whom accompany Demon Copperhead throughout most of the story. Many of the characters are sharply and well-drawn while there may be too many of them to follow easily. The length of the novel also makes it lag in places. The strongest parts of the books are the many descriptive passages of Appalachia, its places and its people.
Barbara Kingsolver was raised in Appalachia and still calls it home. She writes with obvious love and knowledge of the area. She is also painfully attuned to its many problems, including its chronic poverty, lack of opportunity, and, in recent years the opioid and drug epidemics. Kingsolver also writes with a strong sense of injustice and of the way Appalachia and its people are often perceived as hillbillies. The book has a sense of polemic and of criticism for the condescension Kinsgsolver finds directed at Appalachia and for the broader country for turning a blind eye to the poverty and addiction plaguing the region. Some of this is overdone and detracts from the novel.
With its sad themes, the book is saved by its depictions of places and people, and by Demon Copperhead's perceptive writing his humor, and by his efforts to rise when he is down. I came away from the book not with polemic but with a greater appreciation for Appalachia and its people than I had during our family vacations of long ago. I would love to retrace my steps and visit the region again.
Robin Friedman
