Charting the Great American Novel Across "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Demon Copperhead"

If ever there was a holy grail for American literature, the fabled yet mighty Next Great American Novel would be it. With Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver takes a stab at achieving this mythic honor, leaving an indelible mark and a strong contender for prizewinner. The book (published in late 2022 by Harper) adapts Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield (1850), while trailing its titular character as he navigates his coming of age in 1990s Appalachia. Kingsolver – using Demon’s voice – details hardships plaguing the American South, most notably foster care negligence, constant poverty, and the emergence of the opioid epidemic. Demon Copperhead won several awards this year, chief among them the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. 

Despite Kingsolver’s evident call-outs to David Copperfield, I was struck by its similarity to another novel: The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck. To offer a brief refresher, Steinbeck’s book follows the Joad family affected by the Dust Bowl as they migrate to California in the midst of the Great Depression; Steinbeck was also awarded the coveted Pulitzer, with The Grapes of Wrath often being hailed as The Great American Novel. There are plenty of differences between the two, yet both books are similar in the themes that define its plot and characters, namely how poverty and national crises lead to personal distress and tragedy.

While I was reading Demon Copperhead, I noticed that the way Kingsolver describes the opioid epidemic is akin to the manner in which Steinbeck treats the Great Depression. So much so that images of Tom Joad roaming through the American countryside came to mind as I journeyed alongside Demon. Their pains brought on by external forces are identical, and the ever-changing scenery further enforces this. Tom and Demon are mostly different, yet share key resemblances that come to light as the novel progresses. 

The first – and perhaps the biggest – turning point in Demon Copperhead happens when his mother passes away early into the novel (from a presumed-accidental overdose on OxyContin, no less), leaving him to carve his own path while constantly being surrounded by and tempted with his only family’s killer. An older friend who Demon looks up to throws “pharm parties,” doctors fill out just-in-case prescriptions, and his father figure encourages him to do (or take) whatever necessary to overcome the physical pain that Demon has at one point. It seems that the farther Demon advances, the more he’s coaxed to give in. Although Tom is able to hang on to his unwavering familial support system, certain members leave (both voluntarily and not) throughout, as a result of external and very real changes occurring around them. The memories of a once-full and hopeful family weigh on Tom as heavy as the free Oxy promotion around Demon. What’s more, Tom is dogged by painful reminders of the national catastrophe that forever changed his life. No matter how hard Tom and the rest of the Joad’s fight to overcome, the Great Depression makes the light at the end of the tunnel grow dimmer and dimmer. 

Try as they might, both Demon and Tom eventually slip into victimhood of their respective wide-scale disasters. The Great Depression turns Tom into a killer, with his final appearance showing him going on the run and abandoning his family, the one thing seemingly keeping him somewhat afloat. Tom parts with the reader on a discouraging note, reflecting the fact that his surroundings have reached and swallowed him whole. Meanwhile in Appalachia, Demon succumbs to pressure from those around him and ingests his once personally-reviled painkillers, developing an addiction before the novel’s end. While our last look at Demon offers a glimpse of hope, he is infinitely changed from the naive and untroubled tot he once was. 

In my opinion, Kingsolver rightly earns her Pulitzer and Demon Copperhead proves its worth in achieving the status of the Next Great American Novel. Like The Grapes of Wrath, its depiction of the American commonman dealing with a national crisis transcends the paper and strikes the heart of its reader, who can sympathize and even empathize with its hero. Although Steinbeck’s novel is – and will likely always be – the reigning Great American Novel, Kingsolver comes pretty damn close.