A friend recommended Demon Copperhead, and my initial reaction was an objection to the book’s length. Upon reaching the last chapters, I did not want the book to end. This Pulitzer Prize winner is filled with humor, heartbreak, love and longing, addiction, recovery, structural poverty, and class struggle. There are many characters, and at times, it was hard to keep up, but they are well-rounded and engaging. The plot involves the opioid epidemic in 1990s Appalachia and the destruction that followed as lives were destroyed.
It is much more than that and deserves the accolades the book has earned. I knew something about drug addiction from my years as a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, but the story of Demon Copperhead had much to teach me.