{"id":33887,"date":"2023-05-18T01:52:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T01:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=33887"},"modified":"2023-07-02T07:45:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-02T07:45:20","slug":"barbara-kingsolvers-demon-copperhead-and-the-enduring-devastation-of-the-opioid-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/barbara-kingsolvers-demon-copperhead-and-the-enduring-devastation-of-the-opioid-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbara Kingsolver\u2019s \u2018Demon Copperhead\u2019 and the enduring devastation of the opioid\u00a0crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

William Nash<\/a>, Middlebury<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbara Kingsolver\u2019s<\/a> literary honors range from the National Book Prize of South Africa to the PEN\/Faulkner Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 8, 2023, she added a Pulitzer Prize<\/a> to her accolades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her winning novel, \u201cDemon Copperhead<\/a>,\u201d is more than just a reimagining of Charles Dickens\u2019 \u201cDavid Copperfield<\/a>.\u201d Casting an opioid-addicted Appalachian orphan as her protagonist, Kingsolver sheds new light on one of America\u2019s greatest health crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understandably, the COVID-19 pandemic eclipsed media coverage of and national concern over the opioid epidemic; nevertheless, opioids remain a massive public health problem, and I think the author\u2019s attention to it is both welcome and necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In taking up the topic, she joins artists with ties to Appalachia, such as bluegrass guitar phenom Billy Strings<\/a>, the late singer-songwriter John Prine<\/a> and photographer Stacy Kranitz<\/a>, all of whom have used their art to highlight the ravaging effects of these drugs on their region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How artists can reclaim a place<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As an American Studies professor<\/a> who teaches courses on both country music and images of rural America, I see this groundbreaking work through the lens of cultural geography<\/a>, which explores the relationship between culture and place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A region can inspire unique forms of art, music, literature and architecture, and the work of geographer Edward Soja<\/a> helped show how this work can push back against stereotypes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1996, Soja published \u201cThirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In it, he argued that stereotypes of a region\u2019s people and landscape could lead to damaging politics and policies. For example, outsiders\u2019 views of \u201cthe inner city\u201d as hotbeds for poverty, crime and broken families led to the implementation of racist public housing policies in the 1960s<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soja\u2019s book was a call to arms for artists and the marginalized: In what he called \u201cthirdspace\u201d \u2013 a place that exists at the intersection of the real and the imagined \u2013 they can reclaim and reframe visions of their region, showcasing different identities and experiences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appalachia is a region that, for generations, has been subjected to economic oppression<\/a>, classist stereotyping<\/a> and environmental and medical recklessness. The pumping of opioids into rural communities<\/a> represents just another chapter in this story of exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet artists and writers like Kingsolver are able to show that the people in the region are more than just backward, powerless victims \u2013 that they are complicated people with the same goals, longings and fears as the rest of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than an addict<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kingsolver, who was raised in rural Kentucky and who currently resides in Virginia, had a keen vision for Copperhead. She weaves the history of the economic fallout from the tobacco industry and coal mining into her protagonist\u2019s backstory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her central concern, though, was always the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she told The New York Times in October 2022<\/a>, \u201cI wanted to say, \u2018Look, it\u2019s still here, and this got done to us and we didn\u2019t deserve it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Book<\/a>
\u2018Demon Copperhead\u2019 won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Black Bird Bookstore and Cafe<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the story of Demon\u2019s life. An orphan who experiences poverty, an abusive foster home and social isolation, he finds freedom and glory on the football field, only to experience a devastating knee injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressured by his coach and the townspeople to play through his pain, he blindly takes the OxyContin that the local Dr. Feelgood prescribes, only to find himself crippled physically, psychologically and emotionally by his addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, through all of that, Demon is much more than his habit. Kingsolver foregrounds his humanity, his humor and his potential for goodness in a way that makes him more than \u201cjust an addict.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In doing so, Kingsolver uses her connection to the region, her empathy for its residents and her awareness of stereotypes about Appalachians and addicts to avoid what could have easily been a reductive portrayal. Instead, she crafts a realistic and still-not-despairing vision from the inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach \u2013 an example of Soja\u2019s thirdspace \u2013 is, in my view, the most powerful tool that artists have at their disposal to counteract the impulse to move on from grappling with this ongoing epidemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filling the void<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What Kingsolver does in prose, Billy Strings and John Prine do in song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strings, whose breakout hit, \u201cDust in a Baggie<\/a>,\u201d is a portrait of methamphetamine addiction, takes on opioids in \u201cEnough to Leave<\/a>,\u201d a track from his album \u201cHome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written to commemorate two friends who overdosed on fentanyl-laced heroin within the same week, the song<\/a> is a haunting evocation of grief<\/a> for those left behind when addiction takes its toll:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Enough to kill ya, enough to put you down\n Seems like every way you turned was like a hard wind comin' down\n Enough to leave me, enough to leave me here\n And though the room is empty now I can almost feel you near\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The same is true for Prine\u2019s \u201cSummer\u2019s End,\u201d a track from his last album, 2018\u2019s \u201cThe Tree of Forgiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video for that song, directed by West Virginia filmmakers Kerrin Sheldon and Elaine McMillan Sheldon, portrays an aging grandfather and his young granddaughter<\/a> going about the mundanities of daily life in the wake of their daughter and mother\u2019s death. A single frame depicts a news headline about the opioid crisis, illuminating the source of their suffering without overshadowing the regularity of their routines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video brings to mind a line from Samuel Beckett\u2019s 1953 novel \u201cThe Unnamable<\/a>\u201d: \u201cYou must go on. I can\u2019t go on. I\u2019ll go on.\u201d https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nXbEFTv9zr0?wmode=transparent&start=0 The music video for \u2018Summer\u2019s End.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upending a theory of \u2018genetic decline\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Words, music and pictures \u2013 all have become powerful tools in this thirdspace reading of opioid-afflicted Appalachia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like the Sheldons, Kentucky-born photographer Stacy Kranitz offers gritty, complex and beautiful photographic portraits of Appalachia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She has written<\/a> about how she wants her work to provide a corrective to the negative portraits of Appalachia penned by Kentuckian Harry Caudill<\/a> and New York Times reporter Homer Bigart<\/a> in the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caudill, who emphasized the economic exploitation of Appalachia, also came to embrace William Shockley\u2019s theory of dysgenics<\/a>, arguing that \u201cgenetic decline\u201d among the people of Appalachia played a contributing role in the perpetuation of their suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their work brought Appalachia to the Johnson administration\u2019s awareness<\/a>. But it also amplified the national perception of the region and its people as backward, helpless and ripe for exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kranitz\u2019s engagement with Appalachia \u2013 particularly her refusal to let Caudill\u2019s stereotypical views of its inhabitants as backward and regressive stand \u2013 offers a thirdspace revision of the region and its residents. Her series \u201cAs It Was Given to Me<\/a>\u201d juxtaposes a burning cross at a Klan rally with an image of a lovely, innocent girl holding a lit sparkler. Unafraid to illustrate the ugliness of the region, Kranitz is equally insistent on finding its beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like these artists and musicians, Kingsolver set out in \u201cDemon Copperhead\u201d to wrestle with the region\u2019s complex history and its current social ills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that, she succeeded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hopefully the Pulitzer committee\u2019s recognition of the novel will lead others to not only educate themselves about Appalachia, but also participate in the work needed to undo the damage that these drugs have done \u2013 and continue to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
William Nash<\/a>, Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures, Middlebury<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
William Nash, Middlebury Barbara Kingsolver\u2019s literary honors range from the National Book Prize of South Africa to the PEN\/Faulkner Award. On May 8, 2023, she added a Pulitzer Prize to her accolades. Her winning novel, \u201cDemon Copperhead,\u201d is more than just a reimagining of Charles Dickens\u2019 \u201cDavid Copperfield.\u201d Casting an opioid-addicted Appalachian orphan as her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[2746,2809,4530,53,3506,3039,516,484,803,14057,6163,2078,11767,1728,2131],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34264,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33887\/revisions\/34264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}