Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver:
A Discussion

Dear Friends and Readers,

I’m leading a reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s extraordinary new novel, Demon Copperhead via Soapstone. Some of you have already studied this groundbreaking book with me in our writing classes, but these six Saturday morning discussions will be a far-ranging national group discussion. It’s limited to 16 participants and there are only a few openings left. Come join me, beginning May 11 via Zoom for this lively discussion of a novel that is at once hilarious and heartbreaking, most of all, humane.

Click here to join in the conversation. 

Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead
Led by Brenda Peterson
Six Saturday mornings: 10am – noon (PST)
May 11, 18, 25, June 1, 8, 15
via Zoom
$75, scholarships available
Limited to 16 participants

The first line of the novel is Demon’s sassy declaration: “First, I got myself borned.” Appalachia’s moody hollers are in the young boy’s unique diction, his witty asides, his determination to survive everything from abandonment to addiction. But Demon Copperhead is an epic novel of a moral universe navigated by a young boy whose frailties and survival skills belong to us all. It was inspired by Kingsolver’s devotion to Dickens, who mirrored his time in unforgettable characters whose voices endure. 

“My whole life I’ve been wanting to write the great Appalachian novel,” Kingsolver says. “But that nobody wanted to hear.” When Kingsolver spoke at Seattle Arts and Lectures in her melodious Southern accent, she said, “I wrote this book for my people. We feel invisible. We don’t see ourselves on the pages of books, in movies, television, magazines, news—with two exceptions: only as a dumb hillbilly joke or a poverty documentary. That’s not what we are.” 

I chose Demon Copperhead because though I’ve lived in the Northwest for four decades, much of my childhood was in the South. When I landed a job as an editorial slave for five years at The New Yorker magazine, my delicate Virginia tones were mocked. “Lose that accent,” my boss said. “People in publishing will think you’re stupid.” My first novel, River of Light, was set in Georgia and the dialogue was written in a Southern dialect that the Knopf editor kept trying to edit away. I keenly feel Kingsolver’s dismay. In our polarized city vs. rural America, it’s vital to listen to other voices than our own, other regions than our own. 

In our study group discussions we’ll explore and enjoy together this engaging, hilarious, and heartbreaking work by one of our country’s great storytellers.

Required text: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver