Demon Copperhead: Dickens, but make it Southern

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A Dickensian retelling for the opioid age: Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead is the reimagining of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in modern-day southwest Virginia. Damon Fields — nicknamed Demon Copperhead due to his attitude problem and hair color — lives in a trailer with his teenage mother in the late 80s until she overdoses and he becomes a ward of the state. Growing up, he has to endure child labor, opiod addiction, loss and institutional poverty on his journey to becoming a writer. The book is an Oprah's Book Club pick and got kudos from the New York Times for taking “a stab at Dickens and rising above the level of catastrophe.”