Barbara Kingsolver Writes the “Great Appalachian Novel”

In Barbara Kingsolver’s case, writing is also a form of activism, of righting wrongs. For her latest novel, Demon Copperhead, which is the new Oprah’s Book Club selection, she wanted to tell an epic and entertaining tale, but she also wanted to address an injustice. Kingsolver has long felt that Appalachia and its people have been misunderstood and taken advantage of. She knows that from a deeply personal place, as she grew up amid the mountains of Kentucky and now lives on a farm in the Appalachian region of Virginia.