Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

I went back to taking the oxys on the clock.

Turp Trussell.

Turp Trussell is a minor character in Barbara Kingsolver's novel Demon Copperhead, a teammate of the protagonist, Demon. He is a high school football player known for his large build, lack of intelligence (described as having the "Brain of a deer tick"), and an incident where he drank a shot of turpentine for unclear reasons

Hammer Kelly

Hammerhead Kelly (called Hammer) is a cousin in the Peggot family, related through marriage. He harbors a long-time infatuation with Emmy, and the two ultimately begin dating. Not long after, though, Emmy leaves Hammer for Fast Forward. Hammer takes the breakup hard, and it seems like he might never recover. He decides to confront Fast Forward about how he has hurt Emmy, and that confrontation results in both Hammer and Fast Forward’s deaths.

I’d say half the county was there.

Mr. Peg was a person. I felt proud to have some claim on him, but it took me down a notch to see all these other people that had the same claim,

Dori and I got to sit in the family se...

The service was so different from Mom’s. This minister knew Mr. Peg. He told all these stories on him, and everybody was right there.

laughing and crying over a life.

but couldn’t leave without speaking to Mrs. Peggot. She’d been sweet to me back whenever Mom died. I owed her for a lot of things, but especially that. It took me awhile to find her, sitting quiet in her rumpled white hair and a black dress with shoulders way bigger than hers. Waving away all the people fussing over her. She’d been looking after people every minute since she was fifteen and married Mr. Peg, with all those kids and then Maggot. Now they were all saying she could finally get some rest, but if nobody was letting her lift a finger, she was as good as gone. That’s how she looked to me, like the orphan of the world. If you think a person that’s lost everything knows what to say to another one, I didn’t.

But I pulled a chair over and sat, and she gripped my hand so hard it hurt.

Not even looking at me, just h...

It was a

Emmy is the daughter of Humvee, who passed away before the novel takes place. After Humvee died, the Peggots took in Emmy. When Maggot’s mom was sent to prison, though, the Peggots couldn’t raise two children, so Emmy went to live with her aunt June in Knoxville. June eventually formally adopts Emmy. Emmy is depicted as smart and wise beyond her years, but she runs into trouble when she meets Fast Forward, who eventually enlists her in his drug dealing and smuggling schemes.

shocked to see Rose Dartell with a fistful of hair, and Emmy on the other end of it.

Pain was not the issue. Pain is just this thing, like a noise or a really bad smell. Here’s you,

there’s the pain,

you bump fists and make your deal. What I’m discussing is a feeling up inside your blood and lungs, like you’ve been snakebit from the inside. Shivering, loose-boweled, a body you want nobody to get anywhere close to until you can ...

Haillie McCobb’s

Dorie’s mother

Likewise the Charles Dickens one, seriously old guy, dead and a foreigner, but Christ Jesus did he get the picture on kids and orphans getting screwed over and nobody giving a rat’s ass. You’d think he was from around here.

Many had tried their best with us, but we came out of too-hungry mothers.

Four demons spawned by four different starving hearts.

Embezzling.”

Aunt Fred.

the patches,

morphine pills, 80- and 40-milligram

o...

his different nerve...

X...

Klon...

gone over...

Our first date after

Vester died:

the pain ...

Miss Betsy

Her interest was my education.

We were storybook orphans on drugs.

I’d go see Maggot, that had moved back in with Mrs. Peggot.

Maggot’s mom was getting out of prison.

That’s how it all started: clip-art Demon.

June wanted to see me.

Emmy was two months AWOL, and she was at her wits ends.

The women that loomed large in my life were all getting small.

The sun coming down through tall trees in long waterfalls of light,

“Then I’ll tell you. I don’t know a single person my age that’s not taking pills.”

June was quiet.

Kent.

She said Purdue looked at data and everything with their computers, and hand-picked targets like Lee County that were gold mines. They actually looked up which doctors had the most pain patients on disability, and sent out their drug reps for the full offensive.

Of all the good people I knew, she was probably the best one.

with mention of Southwest Virginia or anything close, like Tennessee or Kentucky.

guaranteed to be about poverty, short life expectance, etc. The idea being, we are a blight on the nation. Tommy showed me one with the actual headline “Blight On the Nation.”