An awesome book.

Demon Copperhead is a 2022 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and won the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Though Kingsolver lives in southern Appalachia, I can’t fathom how effectively she puts herself into the mind of the boy — Demon Copperhead. It’s a coming of age story.

Ground zero of the opium epidemic. Demon is born to a drug-using teenage single mother in a trailer in Lee County, Virginia. 

Since his mother is in and out of rehab, Demon is partly raised by the sprawling, warm-hearted Peggot clan. 

Almost everyone in this dirt poor place is drastically hurt by the Sackler family’s killer drug OxyContin.

“I don’t know a single person my age that’s not taking pills,” Demon says at one point.

The Sacklers paid a $6 billion settlement to avoid civil lawsuits. It’s fair to call them killers.

I listened to the audio book. Recommended, as the reader has the right accent and tone of voice.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.