• Home
  • Articles
    • Books
    • Business News
    • Community
    • Economics
    • Environment
    • Food
    • Human Rights
    • Observations
    • Politics
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
The Mirror is a bi-monthly magazine which looks at the social, spiritual, political and environmental issues in our world
Reflections and Observations
  • Home
  • Analysis
  • Books
  • Business News
  • Change the Conversation
  • Climate Change
  • Comment
  • Community
  • Economics
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Health
  • Human Rights
  • Observations
  • Politics
  • Social Networking
  • Spirit
  • The Creative Class
  • The Daily News
  • Women Going Places
  • Uncategorized

Book Review: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize * Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction

A voice for the ages—akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield, but more resilient. From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, this is a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero’s unforgettable journey to maturity.

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival.

Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration.

In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

Share this:

Related Posts

HF-Karen-Hao

Analysis /

Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI

Picture 3 When the going was

Books /

Graydon Carter hired Christopher Hitchens, pissed off Trump and revealed Deep Throat

9780099583561

Social Networking /

How should a person be?

‹ Daniel Ellsberg› Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon

30th May 2025

Recent Posts

  • Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
  • Graydon Carter hired Christopher Hitchens, pissed off Trump and revealed Deep Throat
  • When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
  • Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
  • The EU will spend billions more on defence. It’s a powerful statement – but won’t do much for Ukraine

Categories

  • Analysis
  • Books
  • Business News
  • Change the Conversation
  • Climate Change
  • Comment
  • Community
  • Economics
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Health
  • Human Rights
  • Observations
  • Politics
  • Social Networking
  • Spirit
  • The Creative Class
  • The Daily News
  • Uncategorized
  • Women Going Places

Archives

JEZ Media

Back to Top

  • Home
  • Analysis
  • Books
  • Business News
  • Change the Conversation
  • Climate Change
  • Comment
  • Community
  • Economics
  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Health
  • Human Rights
  • Observations
  • Politics
  • Social Networking
  • Spirit
  • The Creative Class
  • The Daily News
  • Women Going Places
  • Uncategorized

To subscribe, advertise or contribute articles to themirrorinspires.com contact publisher@xtra.co.nz

(c) The Mirror Inspires, 2025