While making my way through Demon Copperhead, I found it impossible to reconcile the first-person narrative voice of Damon with the realities of his being and circumstances.
Damon is a character who exudes an ideal combination of wisdom, maturity, and innocence. He's of course, also extremely attractive, intelligent, athletic, and artistic. He tells his story with an air of sarcastic wit, without any polarizing irreverence, iconoclasm, or deep-seated anger. All the sharp-edges of male adolescence are sanded down, and we're left with little substance but a mouthpiece for Kingsolver.
Ultimately, I found Damon to be an empty vessel. A meticulously crafted empathetic vehicle to showcase the extrinsic horrors of rural poverty, foster care, and addiction. Any situational ambiguity that may reflect poorly on Damon, Kingsolver steps in to absolve him of fault. Any bleak interpretation in danger of slipping past the reader, Kingsolver is there with Damon to pander to our empathy. When circumstances devolve into the brutally tragic, Kingsolver is quick to use Damon's voice to provide levity. That way, she can quickly set up another set of heart-rending dominoes to collapse again on his head. If Demon Copperhead is "tragedy porn", Damon is the male lead creating unrealistic expectations for the reader.
In a sense, it's clear Kingsolver is making a distinction between depravity and deprivation. However in doing so, she completely neglects the psychological reality of how the two interact within a life of deprivation. In stripping Damon of flaws and nuance, she strips him of his humanity. If the only redeemable characters are those who maintain a Damon-like outlook in the face of such adversity, what's the point? Do readers really need to be spoon-fed empathy to detect injustice?
A lot of good things in this one, but Damon's point of view felt completely disingenuous. It really felt like an older woman writing a boy's story on every level. Thoughts?
by AllFalconsAreBlack