Author: Barbara Kingsolver
I am told that this book is a retelling of “David Copperfield”, the Charles Dickens classic. The hero is Damon “Demon” Fields, a young boy born and raised into a live of poverty and hardship in the Appalachian region.
Right from the first few pages, it is clear that Barbara Kingsolver is no stranger to life in Appalachia. She writes with an authenticity that is only obtained from first hand experience and observation. I read in her biography that was raised in a rural town in Kentucky and had first hand experience of being bullied for her peculiar interests in high school.
Right from his birth, Demon is cursed. He is born to a teenage mother addicted to drugs and has never seen his father. His mother’s current boyfriend is both physically and emotionally abusive to Demon, and he naturally hates him from the get go.
The book dives smack into the devastating effects of the opioid crisis in the Appalachian community. The horrors that Demon has to withstand growing up are heartbreaking to read about. I hope that there are no real kids who have had to go through this level of hardship.
Demon is very resilient and he has a spark that keeps him going through all the ups and downs — actually mostly downs — in the book. He is the narrator of the book and Barbara has done a wonderful job of telling the story from Demon’s point of view. The book is 560 pages long, but it is so gripping that I finished most of it during a single, rather long, plane ride.
