A heart wrenching novel: “Demon Copperhead”

Just finished Barbara Kingsolver‘s Demon Copperhead. It grasped my soul while reading it.

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this 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. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he 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.

The story is depressive enough, but the narrative flow, with bits of hope at every turn, is fantastic.

It may not be the aim, but I also thought this novel was in line with a series of novels about lonely men, their desperations, and willful moves, which I saw in Murakami and Paul Auster’s novels.