Murdstone” in David Copperfield ), it’s clear the man views Demon as an unwanted burden to be shed at an opportune moment. When Demon’s sweet, hapless mother hooks up with Stoner, (“Mr. The son of a teenage mother and a young man who died in an accident before his birth, Damon Fields inherits his dead father’s red hair (“Copperhead”), and his first name soon shifts into “Demon.” The loving Peggoty family from David Copperfield become the Peggots and their grandson Matthew, known as “Maggot.” Throughout the book, Kingsolver plays off the names of the characters from David Copperfield for her own characters to great effect.

This coming of age story deals with loss, abandonment, poverty, grief, and addiction in the present day, suggesting that the problems Dickens depicted in Victorian England remain far from solved.

That nonfiction book opened our eyes to the deviousness and callousness of the pharmaceutical companies that pushed those addictive drugs which ruined many people's lives and may still be doing so.In 'Demon Copperhead ,' Barbara Kingsolver brings the plot and characters of Charles Dickens’s classic ' David Copperfield' into the twenty-first century in a rural county in Virginia. When the young man became addicted to opioids after they were prescribed due to an injury, I was reminded of The Empire of Pain The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe, which our Page Turners read last year. I gave it a 4 rating because Kingsolver's writing is excellent, and I felt she portrayed Demon realistically. This was the second 500+ page novel I have read recently, and it got a little tiresome partway through. The novel is inspired by David Copperfield which I sort of wish I had read, or reread, beforehand. In contemporary southern Appalachia he survives an abusive stepfather, foster care, child labor, poor schooling, athletic success and addiction, among other obstacles. I taught fifth grade and that is about the age at which Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon, begins his story. Maybe you have figured out by now that I am a sucker for stories of kids trying to survive tough circumstances. Demon, referring to Catcher in the Rye and David Copperfield 'Likewise, the Charles Dickens one, seriously old guy, dead and a foreigner, but Christ Jesus did he get the picture on kids and orphans getting screwed over and nobody giving a rat's ass.

Demon copperhead review