Best Of: Barbara Kingsolver on ‘Urban-Rural Antipathy’

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“It’s so insidious, people don’t realize it,” Barbara Kingsolver told me, describing the prejudice against “country people.” Kingsolver is one of those “country people,” as well as a literary legend in her own time, who set out to write the “great Appalachian novel.” And I think she did. “Demon Copperhead” won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023, and we taped this conversation later that year. And I wanted to re-air it because the divide between rural and urban America remains just as strong today, and as relevant to our politics. And Kingsolver might be the country’s sharpest and most poignant observer of it. Mentioned: Shiloh and Other Stories by Bobbie Ann Mason Book Recommendations: Landings by Arwen Donahue Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy Pod by Laline Paull Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Mixing by Sonia Herrero, with Aman Sahota. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Today I want to share one of my favorite conversations from our archives.
0:03.6	This is from 2023. It's with Barbara Kingsolver about her amazing book, Demon Copperhead,
0:08.9	which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her work to write the great novel of Appalachia.
0:14.6	I hope you enjoy.
0:19.5	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show.
0:48.2	So in 2023, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was won by two novels, Trust by Hernand Diaz and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingselver.
0:54.0	And Kingsolver, I think, is a literary legend in her own time. I mean, she wrote the bean trees, she wrote the Poisonwood Bible. She has won all kinds of prizes, but I think it's fair to say demon copyright is a kind of masterpiece. And it's a kind of masterpiece she was trying to create. She set out to write, as she tells me in this conversation, she was setting out to write the great novel of Appalachia,
1:11.8	and I think she did. And this is a novel that is following loosely in the structure of David
1:18.4	Copperfield by Dickens. It's a novel set a little bit back in time, I think, that so much
1:24.2	of our thinking now about this is political and places to go for Trump and places
1:28.2	that don't go for Trump. But the novel is set in the 90s and in the 2000s, so a little bit before
1:33.0	some of the current economic and political cleavages attain, at least the form we know them in.
1:39.8	And it's a beautiful book. It's a wrenching book. It's a book that I routinely had to stop
1:44.5	reading because I was so fused with a character and so fused with a story that when I could see
1:53.2	something bad coming, I just couldn't handle before bed. I just couldn't go through that with the main
1:57.6	character. So, I mean, that I think is about as much as you can say for fiction,
2:01.6	when it almost feels more real than the life you're living.
2:04.2	So I was grateful she was willing to come on the show and talk a bit about her life,
2:07.5	how she came to writing the novel, the sort of experiences she brought to it,
2:10.9	and the kind of argument she's trying to have through it.
2:15.3	As always, my email, Ezraline Show at NYTimes.com.
2:22.7	Barbara Kingselver, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from New York Times Opinion, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of New York Times Opinion and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.