‘I’ve dealt with anti-hillbilly bigotry all my life’: Barbara Kingsolver on JD Vance, the real Appalachia and why Demon Copperhead was such a hit

What. The. Heck. My serendipity is working overtime, or there's serious turbulence in the Zeitgeist, because I just finished reading Demon Copperfield yesterday.

It could just as easily have been set in Detroit, or Arizona mine towns, or half of Pennsylvania, or any of a hundred sites of industrial abandonment in the U.S. The story takes place in one of the most abused and left-behind places - the heart of formerly coal-mining West Virginia at the height of the opioid epidemic. Kingsolver deftly weaves in the history of labor, racism, imposed poverty, and the deliberate propaganda effort to paint people who resist the amalgamation of government and money power as stupid and lesser "hillbillies".

She's a brilliant writer. I'm a little suspicious of retelling classic stories, yet Kingsolver captured what was essentially hopeful in Dickens' tale. What could have been a painful, dreary story of repeated, widespread trauma and deprivation became a paean to the resilience of the people and the beauty still vibrant in a damaged land. I'm looking forward to reading her labor history.