A benefit for all Music Hall members, Book Club meets on the second Monday of the month in the lounge at Portwalk Place from 6-7:30pm. Evenings include time for socializing followed by a moderated discussion. This month’s title is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. 

About the Book:

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

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About Our Moderator:

Dana Clinton arrived in Maine after five years in France, and she spent the next thirty years teaching French at Berwick Academy. Retiring from teaching in 1987, she now works part-time at When Pigs Fly in Kittery and resides in South Berwick with her dog, Balzac. She has been part of Book Club almost since its inception and looks forward to every gathering.