Demon Copperhead

Review

4.5 stars This was a great read. As you'd expect from Kingsolver, it feels really faithful to the American South in a way that not many popular novels do—I'm used to shaking my head at a lazy trope or stilted piece of twangy dialogue every few pages when I read a novel with a piece set in North Carolina or Virginia. I loved the central story of Demon/Damon and thought it was beautifully told. Especially noteworthy was how the narration evolved to match his growing maturity. It was a really interesting device that I thought helped build a sense of connection with and empathy for Demon. The theme I thought most about while reading this book was the notion of destiny and fate. Demon spends the whole story talking and thinking about his connection to his father and how his father died, and so it seems inevitable that he'll end up at the Devil's Bathtub at some point in the story. In parallel, we see the threads of fate tying up the residents of Lee county—the central question is how much agency the characters of the story have to escape them, and every character seems to have a different answer. I'm excited to read this one again, and it makes me want to give David Copperfield a look as well.