'Demon Copperhead' tackles opioids, poverty and resilience in Appalachia

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Books, Arts

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Novelist Barbara Kingsolver loves living in the Appalachian hills of southwestern Virginia. But she says she feels that the region is often misconstrued by mainstream media. Her new book, Demon Copperhead, follows a young boy grappling with the consequences of loss, addiction and poverty – but also finding ways to survive through creativity and imagination. In this episode, Kingsolver speaks with Here & Now's Scott Tong about the Dickensian influences in the novel, the divide between urban and rural, and the idea that "the middle of nowhere is relative."

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. I remember reading Barbara King's
0:07.3	book, The Poisonwood Bible in high school, in English class, and I remember being enamored by it.
0:12.9	You know, that type of giddy excitement that can kind of be hard to tap into when you're not a teenager
0:18.4	anymore, except I hear that excitement in Barbara Kingsauver's
0:21.9	voice in today's interview. She's on the pod talking about her novel, Demon Copperhead,
0:26.4	about opioids in Appalachia. And here and now Scott Tong opens the interview asking about
0:31.5	Charles Dickens. And she gets this kind of lilt in her voice, talking about how she's been trying to write the story for a bit.
0:39.2	But what finally unlocked it for her was, of all things, Dickens's desk.
0:44.6	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:49.2	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
0:53.7	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
0:55.8	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:59.5	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:03.4	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:09.3	Barbara Kingsolver has written several acclaimed novels.
1:13.1	The Poison Wood Bible comes to mind, also flight behavior.
1:16.8	Her newest takes inspiration from Charles Dickens in his autobiographical novel from the
1:21.8	19th century David Copperfield.
1:24.3	Kingsolver's title is Demon Copperhead.
1:27.4	It's a modern day story of a boy
1:29.2	orphaned at a young age, and he's trying to survive a raging opioid epidemic that affects
1:34.9	every aspect of life in the Appalachian Hills of Virginia. And that happens to be where Barbara
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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