Wow. I’ve been meaning to read this for a while but figured I’d hold off until I had some time to really get into it. Kingsolver has really created a masterpiece.
“If a mother is lying in her own piss and pill bottles while they’re slapping the kid she’s shunted out, telling him to look alive: likely the bastard is doomed. Kid born to the junkie is a junkie.”
Damon arrives in the world in dramatic fashion, born in a trailer to a teenage mother addicted to drugs. His orange hair, inherited from his dead father, makes him stand out, in a corner of the world where standing out isn’t what you want to do. With his mother in and out of rehab, he finds a surrogate family in the trailer next door.
But Damon, or “Demon,” despite being too wise for his age, doesn’t have an easy life ahead. His story is one of abuse, violence, loss, being shuffled in and out of foster care, child labor, and so much more. This is not an uncommon story in Appalachia, especially in the midst of the opioid epidemic.
I’ve never read David Copperfield, but that wasn’t integral to the story. And make no mistake—this is a bleak story; I’ll admit that it did get a little repetitive at times. But Demon is a narrator and a character I won’t soon forget.
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