favorite – ~*LunaSea*~

Kingsolver, Barbara. Demon Copperhead. Harper Collins, 2022.

Reason read: Kisa gave me this book for my birthday.

Be forewarned. The language of Demon Copperhead is sandpaper rough. There is no romantic words to describe the life of Damon, aka Demon Copperhead. His life is harsh, cruel, and ugly. Like a horrible tasting medicine or a poison akin to chemotherapy, I had to sip the chapters in small increments. Big gulps of heartbreak in paragraph form would surely kill me. And believe me, there were many moments where my eyes couldn’t take in the sentences of pain. Demon is a child with a life from hell, yet completely believable and all too common. Born to a mother addicted to drugs, bounced around from place to place, he finally ends up with a grandmother who changes his life. She doesn’t approve of men living in her house, but she knows someone who will not only take him in, but make him a star. A football star, that is. Bad luck seems to follow Demon wherever he goes. If his life isn’t transient and temporary, it is translucent and tenuous. There is never a moment when I can breathe easy for a boy in the poverty stricken, opioid laden rural south.
I am not proud of the way I minced gingerly through the early chapters of Demon Copperhead as if I were on a sharp rock beach in baby-tender bare feet. But, like a hard won marathon, I would gladly read it again and again.

Lines I loved, “It can thrill a person senseless” (p 129). “The moral of his story was how you never know the size of hurt that’s in people’s hearts, or what they’re liable to do about it, given the chance” (p -).

Book trivia: Demon Copperhead is dedicated to the survivors and is an Oprah Book. Updated to add: and it just won a Pulitzer!

Author fact: Social media has changed the way of the world. Thanks to Instagram, I was able to follow Kingsolver’s writing journey including publication, press, and book tour. It felt a little voyeuristic to pull back the curtain on a process that traditionally is hidden from the public eye, but I am grateful my favorite author chose to be so transparent with her craft.

Playlist: “Amazing Grace”, Avril Lavigne, “Beautiful Mess”, Beastie Boys, Bee Gees, Britney Spears, Brooks and Dunn, Carrie Underwood, Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty”, Destiny’s Child, Dolly Parton, Eddie Rabbit, “Electric Slide”, Elvis, Eminem, Garth Brooks, “I Have Joy Like a Fountain in My Soul”, Ice-Cube, “It’s Gonna Be Me”, Jay-Z, Ja Rule’s “Always on Time”, Jay-Z, Kathy Mattea, LeAnn Rimes’s “Can’t Fight the Moonlight”, Loretta Lynn, “Macarena”, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Nas, P!nk, Prince, Reba McIntyre, Rosanne Cash, Scarface, Snoop Dogg, Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One”, “Song Cry”, Spice Girls, “This Little Light of Mine”, “Thong Song”, Tommy Cochran’s “Life Happened”, Tupac, and Willie Nelson.

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees.New York: HarperPerennial, 1989.

Barbara Kingsolver is my favorite author. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love the way she writes. The Bean Trees is on my Book Lust list and I’ve already read it hundreds of time. It’s the book I grab when I am in between other reads. It’s the book I reach for when I have a few minutes to kill while the rice bubbles on the stove. Given the chance to read it again just for Book Lust I am more than happy to jump at the chance.

Taylor Greer isn’t Taylor until she takes to the highway. Leaving her hometown of Kentucky to see something other than small town rumors and ruts she finds herself on the road, “adopting” a three year old American Indian girl on the way then finally landing in Tucson, Arizona. Taylor is smart, witty and, for lack of a better word, feisty. She tells us her story with great observance to the spirit of humanity.

One of the things I love about Kingsolver’s work is the reoccurring themes: respect for nature described in gorgeous, vibrant detail, immigration and the political implications, the joys and struggles of motherhood (especially the single mother), the value of both belonging to a community and having independence. The Bean Trees is no different. All of these themes are carefully woven into the framework of the novel.

My favorite lines (okay some of them): “Whatever you want the most, it’s going to be the worst thing for you” (p 62).
“There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good” (p 10).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust’s first chapter called”Adapting to Adoption” (p 1). I have to admit I don’t agree with Pearl’s description of how Taylor “acquires” the American Indian child. Pearl says “When Taylor Greer leaves Kentucky for points west in order to escape the confines of small-town life, she finds an abandoned and abused Cherokee child left in her car…” (p 2). It actually went more like this: “Then she set this bundle down on the seat of my car. “Take this baby,” she said….”where do you want me to take it?” She looked back at the bar, and then looked at me. “Just take it.” I waited a minute, thinking that soon my mind would clear and I would understand what she was saying. It didn’t.” (The Bean Trees p 17). This is a poignant scene to me and it makes a big difference (to me) whether the child was left or handed over.

ps~ November is National Adoption month. I reread this just a tad early.