Demon Copperhead

Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead is equal parts compelling and truly difficult to read. I mostly read at night before turning off the light to go to sleep. I'd get to the end of a chapter and would turn to the next chapter... and next another. But then the next day I had to force myself to pick up the book again. I wanted to see where she was taking the story, but I almost really didn't. Very conflicting feelings.

The subject matter is very difficult. Damon Fields is born to a single mother in Virginia, in the heart of Appalachia in the 1980s. His father died several months prior to his birth at a place called the Devil's Bathtub. As a result, Damon was always afraid of bathtubs. His mother was a poor struggling teen living in a single-wide trailer on the property of an older couple who are responsible for raising their grandson since his father is gone and his mother is in prison. Such is the life in Appalachia.

Damon is nicknamed Demon and his Copperhead comes from the vibrant color of his hair. (There's also some legend told about a copperhead snake, but that is debatable.) This is his story. It includes an abusive stepfather, time in foster care, child labor, star athlete, unrequited love, addiction, and then the kind of love that drags a person down. There was also a little bit of hope.

Reading about the foster care system and the addiction of all types of people was difficult to get through. Foster parents who took in kids for the money. Or for slave labor. Or for whatever their agenda was.

I've mentioned Renee's Reading Club, a Faebook group, before. That group is solely for recommendations. There's also an RRC discussion group where you can discuss books after you finish them or as you're reading them. Spoilers are allowed. After I finished reading this novel, I went to the discussion group and wrote my observations about the book and how I think living in a rural area with lots of poverty gave me a different perspective than had I stayed in my little metro-NYC area bubble. In the book, Demon has a running commentary about what he thinks about large cities (the word large being relative since he's mostly talking about Knoxville, Tennessee) and how city folk think about people in rural America. Kingsolver lives in Appalachia so she knows what she's talking about.

I'd love for my community book club to read and discuss Demon Copperhead. We're all transplants here from somewhere, and I'd like to see if they feel they have more of a connection to the setting in the novel after having lived here. This would make a great book club book.

Would I recommend this one? It's very  difficult to read, but if you can read it, it will force you to think about some of the uglier things in life which need to be addressed and not ignored.

Winter's Reckoning

A member of my Books & Beer Club has a friend who wrote a book, she's going to be in Florida in February. "How about if we pick this for our February book?" I didn't hold out much hope, but sure, I love to meet with authors and so I was totally game. Even better when I was able to get an e-book of Winter's Reckoning: A Novel by Adele Holmes from the library.

Wow! What a book. It never would have crossed my radar if not for this book group. It's a novel about the power of women during a time when the races were still being separated in nearly every single way. Jim Crow was very much alive in Jamesville.

Maddie, a Yankee, is a healer in a dying southern Appalachian town in the early 1900s. Her husband who was always accepting of Maddie's open mindedness, unlike most of the rest of the town. Maddie is training two other young women to become healers, too: Ren Morgan, a black woman, and her granddaughter, Hannah. Most of the town can't stand the close friendship between Maddie and Ren.

A new church reverend comes to town. He preaches about the importance of the separation of the races. The KKK which had been quiet in Jamesville comes back full force, threatening Maddie, Ren, and many others who fall within their orbits.

The book was engaging from start to finish. It was a very powerful story that I've recommended on Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. I was so looking forward to meeting Adele Holmes and discussing the novel. Life happens. I have the opportunity to visit my daughter out of town on book club night. I can't pass up a chance to see my daughter and to stay in her new house. Still, I'm sad that I won't be at my next Books & Beer Club meeting.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

I'd read this snippet from a New York Times reviewer:

“[A] compassionate, discerning sociological analysis…Combining thoughtful inquiry with firsthand experience, Mr. Vance has inadvertently provided a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election, and he’s done so in a vocabulary intelligible to both Democrats and Republicans. Imagine that.” (Jennifer Senior, New York Times)

I think these couple of sentences from a review set my expectations of the debut memoir by 30-something J.D.Vance in a certain direction. Perhaps it set my expectations too lofty as they weren't met. I expected to understand a little bit more about the past election after reading this book. And I really don't.

On the one hand, I thought J.D. Vance's memories of growing up in Ohio/Kentucky Appalachia was pretty specific to his family. Yes, there were a lot of folks that had migrated from Kentucky to Ohio in hopes of a better life. But even in his telling, many of the experiences varied family to family. In that way, how was this about a culture in crisis? In order for that description to fit, the stories of most of the families had to be much more similar than they were.

Are the stories he selected reflective of the working white poor only? The working white poor in factory towns? Can society be categorized as simply as that?

On the other hand, I didn't think a lot of what he wrote about was general enough. I recall families with substance abuse problems in New Jersey. Aren't some of their problems similar to what J.D. personally experienced? Some of what he wrote about were class issues, some socio-economic, some strictly economic. Others were education issues. I don't think the issues can be attributed to a specific place in the country. I believe these issues are more widespread and general that the book would have us believe. Lots of people have lots of problems. And lots of people blame others for their problems. Plain and simple. I believe the purpose of Hillbilly Elegy was for J.D. Vance to figure out if the hillbillies he is familiar with were the cause of their own misfortune or was there something external behind it. He didn't solve that mystery for me.

I also have issue with the fact that while J.D.'s grandparents were anything close to being traditional, they were there for him in a way many young people aren't lucky enough to have. Although uneducated, they knew the importance of education. They went above and beyond to make up for the shortfalls of the parenting of J.D.'s mother by being good parental figures for J.D. He was incredibly lucky that he didn't end up in the foster care system. I've read enough books about how that works out. And rarely does it work out well.

J.D. had tough beginnings but he attended Ohio State thru the G.I. Bill and later went on to Yale Law School. He was able to make the move from the underprivileged to the privileged and I think he believes that gives him a window and the vocabulary to explain one group of people to another. On that level, I think the book fails. He's writing from the privileged side. He knows how his story ends. And he is able to articulate the path that made his success happen.

As a memoir, Hillbilly Elegy does a great job of telling the author's personal story. It's a story that will inspire many. That is the real strength of the book. We might have a better understanding of why his grandfather went from being a staunch Democrat to critical of the Democrats over such a short period of time. So much of what is written, though, is very specific in nature to this family.

I believe my book club selected this title not because members hoped to better understand the politics of the last election but rather to understand the part of the country where we now find ourselves living. Many of us lived suburban or urban lifestyles before moving to this rural area. Reading this book helped me understand why many of the kids here don't value the importance of high school because they don't see high school graduation as an aide in getting a decent job or as a  path to college. I definitely understand that better now. I understand a little bit more about grandparents raising grandchildren, something I only grasped somewhat before.

Right now, I'm not sure if I will be able to attend the meeting where Hillbilly Elegy will be discussed. I'm hoping to make it for at least part of the discussion.