Oprah reveals "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver as latest book club pick
A novel that follows a boy born to a single teen mother through foster care, child labor and addiction, among other challenges, is the next book that fans of Oprah's Book Club will be picking up. Oprah Winfrey announced "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver as her latest selection exclusively on "CBS Mornings."
"As we enter fall with a slight crisp in the air and the leaves starting to turn, our next book club selection is perfect to curl up with," said Winfrey. "Set in the mountains of the southern Appalachians, from the very first sentence you're going to be intrigued by this epic story of this young boy."
Kingsolver began writing the book while lodging in Charles Dickens' former home in the United Kingdom. She described the home as "a creaky old mansion on the ocean" that she and her husband had to themselves.
While sitting at Dickens' old desk one evening, she said she began to feel the "Oliver Twist" author's "anger that he channeled in his books."
"He charged me with this mission. He said, 'You've got to do this,'" Kingsolver recalled. "I sat at his desk and started the book that night."
The coming-of-age story was also inspired by the opioid crisis and its lingering effects on children.
"The worst of it is a generation of kids who have been orphaned by opioid use disorder," the bestselling author said. "And sort of as the attention of the world moves on, I really wanted to tell the story of these kids because it's not over for them. They live among us. We all know these kids but it's a dark story and a hard story to tell."
She said she wasn't sure if readers would want to dive "into that dark place," but used her inspiration from Dickens to help tell the fictional story.
"What he told me, which was the key to get into the house, was you let the child tell the story," she said. "Nobody doubts the child. It's just that's the way you tug on the reader's heart."
Kingsolver's 11th book, published by Harper Collins, is on sale now.
