Let's Talk About 'Demon Copperhead'

The Book Review

The New York Times

Books, Arts

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week's episode, a roundtable conversation about Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead,” a riff on “David Copperfield” that moves Charles Dickens’s story to contemporary Appalachia and grapples with topics from poverty to ambition to opioid addiction.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Gilbert Cruz editor of the New York Times Book Review and this is the Book Review podcast.
0:14.4	This week I'm passing the mic over to a couple of our editors here for a spoiler-filled conversation
0:20.8	about the book Demon Copperhead.
0:23.0	It's a book that our readers have been really excited about for
0:26.0	oh about a year and a half so we figured now is the right time to actually talk about it.
0:30.0	This is only our second book club episode and we're still figuring out what works
0:34.9	and what doesn't. So if you have any thoughts about these episodes or really anything
0:40.0	you hear on the Book Review Podcast, please send them our way at books at my times
0:45.0	dot com. Enjoy the conversation.
0:48.6	Hello and welcome to another book club episode of the Book Review
0:55.7	podcast I'm MJ Franklin I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book
0:59.2	Review and this week we are chatting about Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
1:04.0	At the end of last year we chatted about the Heaven and Earth grocery store and that was a lot of fun
1:08.7	so go check that out. In general we want to do more of these and we thought Demon Copperhead would be a great selection this time around for a book club because all of you are so passionate about it.
1:19.4	One of the recurring comments we got when we put out our 10 Best Books of 2023 list and our 100
1:24.5	Notable Books of the 2023 list was Where Is Demon Copperhead?
1:28.7	To which we say it wasn't eligible unfortunately because it came out in 2022.
1:33.0	However, it was on our 2022 best-up lists.
1:36.8	So we did give it all the praise.
1:38.8	We loved it just as much as you did.
1:40.7	But we heard you loud and clear.
1:42.0	There's still so much hunger and
	...

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