Barbara Kingsolver is an America novelist, essayist, poet and non-fiction writer. She's received nominations for a Pulitzer and PEN/Faulkner Prize for fiction. Her most recent novel, DEMON COPPERFIELD was written mirroring Dickens' novel DAVID COPPERFIELD. Furthermore, I drew parallels with Twain's character Huck Finn. All three heroes, Demon, David Copperfield and Huckleberry Finn are orphaned young and left to fend for themselves amongst. They're free thinkers, able to maintain an irrepressible decency despite the omnipresence of vile and self-destructive people. Demon perseveres through a saga of tribulations and grief, gratefully mitigated by the kindness and support received amidst constant turmoil. This novel is set in modern times in the TN mountains and details the hellish fallout caused by pharmaceutical companies pushing opioids leaving a generation addicted to drugs. Demon loses his mother and girlfriend to addiction and he too becomes addicted after being prescribed opioids after shattering his knees from football. It's painful to follow Demon as he's shuffled from foster home to foster where he's starved and coerced to work ungodly jobs. Demon is mostly starved for compassion. His resilience and resourcefulness take him on a perilous journey where he manages to locate his grandmother he never met. His grandmother unwittingly takes him in and he connects with his invalid, great uncle. Not wanting a male relative, his grandmother places him in a foster home of the local high school's football coach who has a daughter, Angus, whom he befriends. Living with Angus and coach finds temporary haven and with the attention of an art teacher who mentors Demon's drawing skills. He finds happiness under the nurturing he receives but Demon has learnt to expect the shoe to drop at any moment. Despite the obstacles stacked against Demon, he's a survivor whose loyalty and earnestness make him deserving of a fortuitous life. Demon acknowledges and appreciates the goodness he perceives in others like Tommy who shared the same horrific foster home, June, the adoptive parent of Emmy who was his first crush. Emmy tells Demon he has the same tenacious goodness as kindhearted Hammer, "same kind of good like you are. Like there's some metal or something in you that won't melt down, no matter what." Demon reasons, "Live long enough, and all things you ever loved can turn around to scorch you blind, The wonder is that you could start life with nothing end with nothing, and lose so much in between," DEMON COPPERHEAD is a powerful coming of age story, that unfurls resplendently in its telling that's sure to become an instant classic.
No comments:
Post a Comment