Appalachia

I’m shouting it out today for a book that I’m in the middle of reading. I love stories that take place in Appalachia, and this one is about a teacher who is trying to save her school and support the community she has come to love. I’ve only just started it, but I already love the character of Kate Shaw. Leah Weiss is a new author for me, so if I enjoy this novel, I’ll have to look for her other titles!

Here’s the scoop:

An outsider to the Carolina hills inherits a gift that could change everything for her beloved creek town on the verge of dying out, from an author of whom NPR said writes “with a deep knowledge of the enduring myths of Appalachia…vividly portraying real people and sorrows.”

Summer, 1980. Kate Shaw has lived in Baines Creek for ten years, teaching at a one-room schoolhouse on the brink of closure. A skeptic by heart, she rejects superstition and the belief in Appalachian folklore, much to the chagrin of Birdie Rocas, a lively and reclusive witch with a trove of secrets. Yet when Birdie dies and leaves Kate her Book of Truths and a trunk of illuminated manuscripts and journals, Kate is thrown into a mystery, overwhelmed by a collection that spans centuries back to Scotland.

Enter Lydia Brown, a psychic with a curious birthmark whose visions stopped the day her parents died. Grief-stricken, without her gift, and in need of spiritual guidance, she travels to Appalachia in search of Birdie. From there, the two women’s stories intertwine, as they investigate the questions surrounding Birdie’s death and legacy, through secret rooms, underground tunnels, and back country graveyards.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Leah Weiss is an acclaimed Southern writer living in Virginia. Her debut novel, If the Creek Don’t Rise (2017), was a Library Reads selection, Indie Next pick, and SIBA Okra Pick, and was honored as a finalist for the Library of Virginia’s Literary Fiction and People’s Choice Awards, as well as nominated for the Southern Book Prize. Her second novel, All the Little Hopes (2021), was a Library Reads selection, a BAM December Book Club pick, named a Best Book for Fall 2021 by Country Living, and a finalist for the 2022 Library of Virginia People’s Choice Award.

Thank you for my review copy from Sourcebooks!

A NEW YORK TIMES “TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2022”

An Oprah’s Book Club Selection An Instant New York Times Bestseller An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller A #1 Washington Post Bestseller

“Demon is a voice for the ages—akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield—only even more resilient.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

“May be the best novel of 2022. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love.” (Ron Charles, Washington Post)

From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero’s unforgettable journey to maturity

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon 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.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for listeners of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

Wow! I have always loved Barbara Kingsolver (Poisonwood Bible being one of my fave books ever) and I think I’ve read just about everything she’s written. This novel, though, is pretty amazing. It’s a modern day David Copperfield, and it’s like you mixed David Copperfield with Hillbilly Elegy. It’s raw and stark, yet amazingly uplifting, too. You can’t help but love Damon the narrator (“Demon”) and you’ll root for him to the end. I felt the narrator did an incredibly job in capturing the accents and the nuances of this novel, too.

It’s a long one, but worth the time.

(I got mine through my Audible account.)