I started reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (see my blog on Unsheltered) last summer and was really enjoying it until life got in the way, so was delighted to finally find time to pick it up again this summer. It is a modern take on David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, set this time in the poverty of rural Appalachia in the midst of the opioid crisis.

Demon has a very tough beginning when his father dies in an accident and his mother hooks up with an unsuitable boyfriend not fit to be a father to Demon as she struggles with addiction issues. This eventually leaves Demon alone in the world to fight for survival in a completely unsafe and dysfunctional care system, where care is the last thing he receives from the various foster placements he ends up in. Put to work before he is even a teenager in tobacco fields and then in a meth lab, he finally has enough money to run away to seek out any remaining family he may have left.

This is a period of his life when he falls on his feet, finding a home where food is on the table and he wants for nothing financially (but where he is still neglected), making a true friend in female Angus and immersing himself in college football. But then an injury leads him right back to where he started – a world of painkillers. This is a gripping read and whether you know the plot of David Copperfield or not, you’ll be on the edge of your seat to see whether Demon can survive the hand he has been dealt.