Demon Copperhead Study Guide

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of more than 10 novels, many of which center on themes of social justice, as well as numerous nonfiction and poetry books. She grew up in rural Kentucky, where her father was a physician. She attended DePauw on a music scholarship but decided to study biology after realizing how competitive the job field would be for a classical pianist. While at college, she participated in anti-war protests during the Vietnam War. Kingsolver began as a nonfiction writer at the University of Arizona, and she wrote a book about a 1983 mine strike in the state, which would later be published in 1989 as Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983. Initially unable to find a publisher for Holding the Line, Kingsolver turned her attention to an unfinished novel, which became her first book, The Bean Trees (1988). Throughout her career, Kingsolver has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction twice as well as the National Humanities Medal, among many other prizes and awards. Her most recent novel, Demon Copperhead (2022), won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Kingsolver also established the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, which is awarded to first-time writers whose novels address social justice themes. Kingsolver currently lives in Washington County, Virginia, part of the Appalachian region.  

Demon Copperhead focuses on how the coal mining industry and the opioid epidemic have impacted the Appalachian region of the United States. Coal mining was once one of the dominant industries in Appalachia, with the mining industry contributing to significant economic growth in the region. However, around 1985, surface mining began to replace underground mining as the industry’s preferred method of coal extraction, and this caused the number of coal jobs dropped roughly 50% in the region. With fewer opportunities for employment, Appalachia became one of the most impoverished places in the country. Mining also left many workers ill or physically debilitated, and studies have linked attempts to treat the physical impairments people suffered as a result of mining to an increase in opioid use in the region. The opioid epidemic—an ongoing crisis dating back to 1990 that has led to an increase in overdose deaths in the U.S. as well as an increase in the abuse and misuse of drugs classified as opioids—has especially impacted Appalachia. In 2021, the rate of overdose deaths in Appalachia was 72% higher in Appalachia than in other parts of the country. Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin—the drug that Dr. Watts prescribes Demon in the novel—in the U.S. in the late 1990s, marking the drug as safe and effective despite evidence that it could be addictive. OxyContin and other opioid painkillers were subsequently overprescribed throughout the U.S., leaving people to develop a dependency on the drug. From 1999 to 2016, an estimated 450,000 Americans died from opioid use. 

Kingsolver’s works often address themes of social justice, including her first novel, The Bean Trees, which touches on the topics of motherhood, Native American parental rights, and the struggles of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The Poisonwood Bible, perhaps Kingsolver’s most well-known novel, tells the story of a Christian missionary family that travels from the U.S. to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo to address themes of sexism, misogyny, racism, and U.S. imperialism. Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. In addition to borrowing plot structures, characters, and character dynamics from David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead is also indebted to Dickens’s understanding of literature as a tool for social good. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy touches on similar themes as Demon Copperhead, including addiction and criminal activity. In addition, the novel is set in Knoxville, a city often visited and referenced in Demon Copperhead. Demon Copperhead also seems to be in conversation with several contemporary works. In some ways, the novel can be seen as a rejoinder to the portrait of Appalachia presented in J. D. Vance’s 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy. Demon Copperhead draws a comparison between the caste system of India and social hierarchies in the U.S., similar to Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which portrays racism in the U.S. as being part of a caste system.