Demon Copperhead

⭐ 8.5/10

This was a large book I read basically in a week while on vacation, so it will always have a special place in my heart. It's the story of a boy who is born into a difficult life in Virginia in the late 90s, and follows him as he grows. The book says its a modern retelling of David Copperfield, which I have never read, but funny enough I found a kids version of this book on our trip and just looked at the pictures and was shocked at how direct of a retelling this is. Names and events are all basically the same, just modernized, at least from what I can tell from my 2 minutes skimming Copperfield. Not sure if that diminishes the book to me, but I certainly would have been more impressed if this was an original piece.

Regardless I found this book incredibly engaging. The life of Damon is tragic, with continual hardship. Even when good people enter his life, or promising events occur, you can feel him backslide because of the people around him and the circumstances of his life. It was hard to read at times, especially as the father of a young boy, but I found the writing style kept my pace high. This is a very specific voice, and I respect how difficult it would be to write from this perspective. It took a bit for me to sink in to it, but it felt genuine to the time and place throughout.

I am a sucker for things like this, and I found myself thinking of the movie Boyhood. Despite completely different circumstances there is a ton to relate to here in my own growing up, especially in that it takes place at the same time I grew up. One thing I find kind of annoying in a first-person retelling like this is the wisdom of the voice telling the story. Damon is insightful, presumably because he is telling this story from the future, but at times I find the poeticism of his narration conflicting with who I know him to be in the story.

There are a couple other nitpicks, notably that he turns out to be this incredible artist who is able to express himself and find some solace in his art. Seemed like an escape hatch for the author, some way to allow this character some respite in all their pains and even some eventual success, but it felt like a crutch. Not like talent needs to come from somewhere or be explained, I'm having a hard time understanding why this inclusion felt a bit cheap to me, but it did.

This book at some point becomes very clearly a tale about the opioid epidemic of that time, and while the history of that story is interesting and still has implications today it felt heavy-handed to me. I fully believe in the place and time depicted in this story, but some characters in the story attribute all of the pain and suffering in these rural communities to the rich corporations in big cities poisoning them with narcotics. I haven't dug in to this history completely, and the characters in question might have been dipping into conspiracy, but it sure felt like this was the author's perspective as well, that this community had no agency in the strife that hits every family. I really can't speak to the truth of this, and its an interesting idea, it just took the power away from some of the characters, and the blame from some others. Didn't ruin in the book or anything, it just felt like a shift that eats up a huge portion of this book.

All these complaints are minor, I would certainly recommend this book if you are in to tragic coming-of-age sagas.