Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
PA CASA staff invite active CASA volunteers, staff, and board members to join our Book Club with selections to enrich your work in the CASA network.
It's easy to join!
Register for which date you wish to attend, either Option 1 or 2. You will receive the virtual meeting link and a calendar invite.
Option 1
Thursday, November 16, 2023
6-7:30 p.m.
Option 2
Friday, November 17, 2023
11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Please register to receive the virtual meeting link for the conversation. If you need to switch dates, please contact Steve Gill ([email protected]) or Idelia Robinson-Confer ([email protected]).
About the Upcoming Title
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenage single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.
Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.
Trigger & Content Warnings:
- Substance addiction
- Opioid epidemic
- Abuse (physical, emotional, verbal)
- Sexual abuse
- Poverty
- Foster care system
- Death
- Violence
For further questions or concerns regarding these warnings, please contact Steve Gill ([email protected]) or Idelia Robinson-Confer ([email protected]).
Other Information:
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2023)
- Orwell Prize Nominee for Political Fiction for Shortlist (2023)
- Women's Prize for Fiction (2023)
- Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2022)
- A New York Times "Ten Best Books of 2022"
- An Oprah’s Book Club Selection
- An Instant New York Times Bestseller
- An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller
- A #1 Washington Post Bestseller