“Where does the road to ruin start?”

This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is written as a recovery journal by a young man in Appalachia who was born to a single mother experiencing addiction. It’s the story that author Barbara Kingsolver wanted to write for years because every family she knows in her part of Appalachia has lost someone to addiction. But how could she make this difficult story captivating? She turned to Charles Dickens for inspiration. He wrote about a young victim of the industrial revolution about 175 years ago, and Kingsolver reimagined Dickens’ plot and characters, keeping the fast pace, pathos and compassion. I love this modern masterpiece.

Kingsolver, Barbara. Demon Copperhead. Harper, 2022, p. 332.

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