Demon Copperhead
"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose." Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged 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. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he 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.
Stats for nerds
7recommend
10mentions
10people
2023–2026years
70% recommend30% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It always blows my mind that Lonesome Dove is recommended across so many different communities, especially nerd-related ones like HN. I read ~100 books a year on average and it continues to top my all time favorites list; but, in all honesty, I cannot believe it appeals to the wide audience it does due to its content.
That said, here are some of my all time favorites (no particular order):
01. Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
02. Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)
03. A Painted House (John Grisham)
04. A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles)
05. The Great Alone (Kristin Hannah)
06. All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)
07. Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)
08. The First Law Trilogy (Joe Abercrombie)
* this encompasses three long books; however, I consider them one long epic novel
09. Mailman (Stephen Starring Grant)
10. Demon Copperhead (Barbara Kingsolver)
11. Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus)
12. Hench (Natalie Zina Walschots)
13. Personal Librarian (Marie Benedict)
14. In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)
15. Life We Bury (Allen Eskens)
16. Ordinary Grace (William Kent Krueger)
17. God of the Woods (Liz Moore)
18. Maid (Nita Prose)
19. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell (Robert Dugoni)
20. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (James McBride)
- My favorite book this year has to be The Divine Farce, I haven't been gripped by a story like that in years. A short stay in hell falls in the same category. I'm still reading a book by Barbara Kingsolver: Demon Copperhead. It's really good and I like the story, but I have not finished it yet since I can't seem to find the time for it. Some other short stories like an inhabitant of Carcossa...
- Some highlights from this year include:
- The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
- Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
- A Frog In The Fall (And Later On) by Linnea Sterte (A graphic novel)
Overall I'm at 65 books on the year—I maintain a reading list[1] on my personal site that has the rest.
- Best novel of the year for me: Playworld by Adam Ross.
I read a lot of books for work, talk to people who read a lot of books, and that is my #1 recommendation. Also this year I enjoyed Demon Copperhead, Mobility, Land of Milk and Honey, Afterworld, The Terror. Many of those books aren't new, but I enjoyed them in 2025.
- Barbara Kingsolver - Demon Copperhead. It took me a while before it clicked that the book's title was meant to rhyme with David Copperfield. It's really well written coming-of-age story of a life lived under modern-day poverty. It's well written with clever and subtle phrases and a really good pace. The book stays with you a while after you've finished it (which in my case was fast as I couldn't stop reading). Afterwards I got to reading more about opiods and their nasty origins.
- Barbara Kingsolver's book "Demon Copperhead" is a gut punch of a look at the degree to which Appalachia has gotten fucked over over the years, and is also just an absolutely fantastic novel with some of the most beautiful writing I've read in years:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/demon-copperhead-barbara-kingso...
