Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver (Audible)

As a long time Kingsolver fan, I’ve learned she can take us on journeys wildly unlike the last novel and always move me. I chose to listen to the audio book of Demon Copperhead due to having a lot of driving to do over the last few months. That doubled the blessing with a narrator that killed every voice, every character, every accent. I wrote on a site I participate in that I had serious writer’s envy because I imagined Kingsolver coming up with just the right word every time to create this poem of a book. I’m not going to bother here talking about the whole story, other than to say it’s a first person narrative of a boy who was born into hard luck, cast into more hard luck, and eventually, after more hard luck, finds himself in a deep and satisfying way. Kind of like, um, what was that guy’s name? David Copperfield. I’m of an age where we read that in 9th grade and that was awhile ago, so I’m pulling out the partial set of Dickens I own to see if David is one of the volumes I have. I want to reread it and then listen again to Demon. Or maybe read him. Absolutely one of my favorite books in a couple years or longer and that’s saying a lot.