Barbara Kingsolver

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there. Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.

Demon Copperhead

Alyssa C Smith

It hit me pretty hard, how there's no kind of sad in this world that will stop it turning. People will keep wanting what they want, and you're on your own.  

Show me your paycheck, I'll make a guess which floor. If you are making a rich person happy, or a regular person feel rich, aka better than other people, the money rolls. If it's lowlifes you're looking after, not so much. And if it's kids, good luck, because anything to do with improving the life of a child is on the bottom.

tiff

When your parent clocks out before you clock in, you can spend way too much of your life staring into that black hole.

The eye sees what it cares enough to see.

If you’ve noticed, it’s the prettiest people that everybody wants to believe, and next after that, the most wrecked.

my heart hurts sm for him DAMON GET BEHIND ME I WILL SAVE U

He asked if I had ever been so sad I wished I could go to sleep and not wake up. I said not really, I just usually went to sleep wishing I’d wake up in a different house. He said that was understandable.

I told her nobody ever asked me that question before, about growing up and what I wanted to be, so I didn't know. Mainly, still alive.

At the start of the service they did that song about Amazing God, and I felt exactly the opposite: I once could see but now I'm blind, was found but now I'm lost.

It hit me pretty hard, how there’s no kind of sad in this world that will stop it turning. People will keep on wanting what they want, and you’re on your own.

If I wanted to visit my parents, I would have to make little fake graves to leave behind me on my road to nowhere.

Demon Copperhead quotes

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