Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Oprah’s Book Club has announced that its latest book selection is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
The book, published by HarperCollins, is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It’s the story of a boy born to a teenage single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, caustic wit and a fierce talent for survival.
In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.
A LIFE-CHANGING PHONE CALL
Oprah Winfrey announced the new selection on CBS Mornings, with the author joining the anchors in-studio to discuss her latest publication.
“Getting that call from Oprah is the highest literary prize on the planet, if you ask me,” said Kingsolver. “Not just because of the powerful way she connects books and readers, but because of the reader she is, herself. I could barely hold it together when she described my own book to me on the phone — her appreciation of the craft, the empathy and how it touched her personally.”
“Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the kind of epic you want to read this fall,” said Oprah.
This information was first shared by Oprah’s Book Club here.
About Barbara Kingsolver:
Barbara Kingsolver grew up in rural Kentucky and earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona before becoming a freelance writer and author. At various times in her life, she has lived in England, France and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides.
Her fifteen books include short stories, essay collections, poetry and seven novels. In the first decade of the new millennium, following her well-known work The Poisonwood Bible, she published two novels (prior to this one) and three non-fiction books including Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a narrative of her family’s locavore year that helped launch a modern transition in America’s food culture. Kingsolver’s work has been translated into more than two dozen languages and has been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation.
Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest. In 2000, she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Critical acclaim for her books includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, among many others.
In 1998, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize for fiction, the nation’s largest prize for an unpublished first novel, which has helped to establish the careers of more than a half dozen new literary voices. Through a recent agreement, the prize has now become the PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.
About Oprah’s Book Club:
Oprah’s Book Club connects a worldwide community of readers to stories that truly matter by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Readers around the world can join the conversation on Oprah’s Book Club across social media using @OprahsBookClub and on OprahDaily.com. All selections are available now on Apple Books in both ebook and audiobook at apple.co/OprahsBookClub, and in bookstores around the country.
