Demon Copperhead | Holly Furtick Book Club

Foreign.

Welcome to the Holly Furtick Book Club. I have been waiting all day for tonight. I have been waiting. Well, I've been waiting for months for this night to come, but I have been so excited about tonight all day. My middle son Graham had a wrestling match and showed up. And it was supposed to start at 4:30, but then we found out that their team wasn't going first. And so my husband looked at me and he was like, go out to the car and work on book club. I was like, I'm ready for book club. I wish book club was in five minutes because I have been waiting. I'm like, I've been waiting all day. I've been waiting all. I've been waiting since I read this book back in November. I cannot wait to talk to you guys about this book and I cannot wait. I can't believe we're talking to Barbara King Solver tonight. And I'm going to try not to like fan, fan girl out over this whole situation. But welcome to the Holly Freddick Book Club. If you are just joining us tonight, we are talking about Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. This book just came out, of course, it's a New York Times bestseller because I think all of her books are New York Times bestseller books. And this book, it's upside down. Well, this is Instagram Live, so I don't really know how to flip it around, but you get, you just, just take in the COVID Because if you haven't read this book, you're gonna need to go and get a copy or do the Audible. I did the Audible. I love audiobooks. They're like a gift to me. But if you have not read this book, just hang on with us. Oh, look, Stephen Furtick's on. Everybody say hi to Pastor Steven, my amazing husband. He said best book ever. Let's go, guys. I even got my husband, I even got Stephen Furtick to read this book. And do you know how hard it is for me to get him to finish books? And it's so hard. And he loved it. And okay, so if you're just joining us, you haven't read this book, you can hang out for a little bit. But I do need to tell you that the Holly Furtick Book Club, we do spoilers because we read the book and then we talk about it because it's a book club. So if you haven't read it, just hang on for a little bit and then pop off, get the book because you're gonna love it and then you can come back and watch this interview that I'm about to do with Barbara Kingsolver. After you finish the book. Okay, Everybody's saying hi to Pastor Steven. I want to say hi to a few people who are joining us. Lisa Hughes, everybody. Say happy birthday to Lisa Hughes because tomorrow is her birthday. Hello, Esme. Hello, Santos. Kimberly. She says I'll get it just because you said so. There's some adult content in this book. If you are picking it up, I don't want you to be shocked. Hi, Donna. Hello, Charlie Hughes. Hello, KL Cooper. Hello, Joy Isabella. I am Ali Owens. Hi. Hello, Kate Demello. Hello, Shell G. Hello, Sophia Faith. Verdict. My mother in law is on. She loved this book. Guys, I, I cannot spend a lot of time welcoming you. I cannot waste a lot of time on the front end of book club like I do sometimes. I know I get carried away. I know I talk too much to this camera, to all of you, but I can't tonight because we, I want all of our time to be with Barbara after we do our normal opening stuff. So. Hello, Lisa Pham. Hello, Tea and scones. Hello, Stephanie Castle 2. Hello. What Renee reads.

Guys.

Okay, before we jump into the content, I always start off by telling you what I read this this month it's been, we haven't met since December, so it's been like almost like six weeks. And I've had some hits and I've had some misses. You know, I only share the hits. Hello, Christine Kane. Thanks for joining us. I, I, I have had some hits. I've had some misses. I only like to share the hits with you because who. We don't need to talk about books that we don't like. There's no need. So I have three books that I read, one of them and you know, when I say hits, I say it's worth recommending. But if this sounds like a book that you would like.

Okay.

So one of them was actually just two. I just decided to take one off because I really didn't like it. Anyway, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Have you guys seen that book? It's everywhere and everybody's raving about it. And I will say I liked it. I didn't like it enough to be book club because it would, I just, I just didn't think that you guys would, that everybody would love it. And I really enjoyed it from start to finish. It's about video game programmers. And you start out with, with these two kids when they're like 10 and they're playing Super Mario Brothers and then they grow up to like create video games. Together. And it's a great story, great coming of age, boy and a girl, non romantic. I don't want to give anything away. I mean, there is romance in the book, but not a lot. Anyway, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I really liked it and I really think you should read it, but I just didn't want to make a book club. Okay, then the second book that I read that I would recommend to you guys. And just so you know, if you're a part of the Holly Furtick Book club, I send out an email twice a month, I think is what we're up to now. Maybe not even that much, but I send out an email and I will recap our book club and I'll tell you what we're going to read next and I will give you these books and their links, so don't worry about it. But first one was tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Second one is don't laugh at me. Okay. I actually read this book. It was called the Lobotomist's Wife and it was on sale on Audible. And what happened was I ran out of credits. My credits didn't renew until January 28th. And I was like, I bought this book on sale. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna give this book a try. It was actually very interesting. I ended up googling a lot about lobotomies. And it was sort of like one of those books that's like a historical. A fictional account of a historical figure. So it was a fictional account of the man who like brought the lobotomy to the United States. If you like that kind of book.

It was a quick read.

If you like like weird science fiction. Not science fiction. Fiction that has science in it. You like it? I don't know. There you go. I'll send it to you in an email. Hi, Elise. Elise said what had happened was Renee says sometimes I feel like I need a lobotomy. I know you guys, but it was kind of interesting. It was actually pretty fascinating, the whole history of the lobotomy. So. All right, you guys, we gotta talk about this book because we gotta get Barbara on here and we have to talk to her about this. And I've been listening to some interviews that she's done and, and I. I seriously can't wait to talk to her. So first before we bring her on, we have to talk about the things that we loved about this book. Now, as you know, this book, and I think I started saying this, but I got a little distracted. But this book is a retelling of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Now, I don't know if you've tried to talk to anyone about this book, but every time I told somebody, oh, you've got to read Demon Copperhead. It's based on David Copperfield. And people would say, the Magician. And I'm like, no, not the Magician. The Charles Dickens novel. Now, I have not read the Charles Dickens novel. I was. I don't know. I wasn't ready. Maybe I will after talking to Ms. Kingsolver. But I didn't. I watched the movie. And if you have read the book, you should go back and watch the movie. I think it's called. It's on Hulu and Amazon prime, and it's. It's called. Oh, I can't remember what it's called, but it's. It's about. Just type in David Copperfield. And it's the movie from, like, 2019. And it really gives you a good picture of what the plot of David Copperfield is. And you will love this book, Demon Copperhead, even more when you see what she's done with it. So, guys, first of all, let's talk about what we loved about this book. Heidi Grecki says, I kept going back and forth with Wikipedia for David Copperfield while I read this. I know it was so amazing what she did. We're going to talk to her about it, too. So what did you love about this book? Not necessarily, like, scenes, but I know that this was a grittier book than we typically read. I know that this was a heavier book, a sadder book than we typically read. But I want to know what. What kept you reading it? What did you love about it? So here are some of the things that I loved about it. Okay. I loved how this book made me feel. I was. At one point, I was so anxious. The scene where he's in the gas station and the lady steals his jar of money. I was driving home from taking my kids to school, and I was so into this scene. I was having, like. My stomach was hurting, and I was, like, having actual anxiety, so much so that I had to turn it off. I was like, I can't listen to this right now. This is making me feel terrible.

I don't know what's gonna happen to this kid, but I. I can't.

I can't take it. So I loved how this book made me feel. I loved how this book made me empathize. Like, I will never look at another. A person who struggles with drug addiction. The same again. I never will because it gave. It was so humanizing and you just felt so much sympathy for him. And I loved how even though the topic of this book was hard and it was difficult to read.

I loved.

How it made me empathize. I loved how it made me cheer for this character. So I'm going to read some of your comments in just a second, but I have to read. I have to tell you this part. I loved this boy. Like, I love this boy so much. I wanted to adopt him. He was a real person to me. And I was ready to talk to my husband and say, we need to take this child into our home and help him. I wanted to help him. He was so lovable. And a lot of times people who are in situations like this, people who grow up in situations like that, they're really hard to love. And. And I feel like that Barbara really pulled off making us love this character, not hate him. We weren't constantly, like, mad at him or why did you do. You were just. You cheered for him from the very first page.

He.

He was just. He was so lovable. Okay, so I'm going to read some of your comments. Charlotte Fishback says, yes, I asked my son if he wanted a brother. Let's see. Someone else said, I love that the book put you in his shoes and gave you a different perspective. Sorry. Let me read your names. That was Jacqueline Bena. Jacob says, I wanted to rescue this kid for over 400 pages. Donna said, yes, me too. Hi, Donna. I'm glad you're on. Renee said, oh, Renee's telling. Somebody asked, what book are we talking about? We're talking about guys, hello. We're talking about Demon, Copperhead. What else do you have, Joe? Erica Lopez says, yes, you loved him despite his flaws. Somebody, Nikki says it made her want to foster. Let me go back and read some of these other comments that were coming in. See, I loved how this book opened my mind, says Mrs. Queen Bishop. I love when I read a parallel in David Copperfield. Yeah, like if you were a David Copperfield fan and you saw the way that she named the characters, which is something I want to ask her about. Bennett Jacobs says, I love Demon has a distinct voice. I wish I could hear him as I could hear him as soon as I started reading his words. Lisa fan said, Lisa Efam says, I was so mad at the gas station lady. Miranda says, I got so mad during that scene that I had to stop listening to key. Kiki W. Says, oh, my gosh, I was so upset. Nana Candy says, I kept reading to see if Demon would be okay. Bethany says, I loved his innocence. Renee says, secondhand anxiety, for sure. Guys. I mean, this book just created so much. So much feeling, and I just really love that.

Hello.

Oh, look, we got a guest every day. Hi, Stephen.

Hey.

What'd you love about the book?

Barbara Kingsolver. What a genius.

Okay, let me ask you my next question. Who did you hate the most? Okay, now first I have. Before you start typing anything, before you answer, I need to remind you of how many characters we hated in this book. Okay, so I didn't even put her on there. Okay, I definitely hated her. Well, first of all, I. I hated Demon's mom. I'm like, get yourself together for your son. Then I hated the Peggots because I was mad at them for not.

I need to.

You weren't mad at him for not taking him in?

They.

They did.

I mean, I understand why they didn't, but I was still mad at them. Okay? I was mad at the Macabre for how they treat a demon like a puppy. Remember how they made him, like, live on a air mattress in their laundry room? Okay. I was mad at Fast Forward. Were you mad at him?

Yeah. I thought Fast Forward was one of the. One of the best characters, though. I thought that the dimensions of Fast Forward were, you know, unfolding very slowly. Very interesting.

It was interesting because you didn't know whether to trust him or not. You didn't know whether to. If, like, to, like, if he was gonna help Demon or, you know, like, even in the.

When.

When he took his money at the beginning, he was like, give me all your money. We'll have a party.

Okay.

Did you hate U Haul? He was the guy that worked for. He was the guy that worked for the coach.

It's been a month.

Yeah, he's the guy that worked for the football coach. He's so creepy.

Yeah. No.

U Haul.

I thought U Haul was going to turn out much darker. I thought U Haul was gonna take everything down. So, you know, I didn't love U Haul, but I thought U Haul had. You know, I thought U Haul was gonna be even more.

Okay, guys, you gotta. Gotta. Don't be distracted. That Steven Furtick is on here. I need to know who you hated of these characters that we're talking about. So Jenny Dillon is saying U Haul. Somebody say U Haul was slimy? Okay, how about Dory, the girlfriend?

Yeah.

Did you hate her? Hate her?

That's a. Barbara Kingsolver did not make me.

Hate.

You don't like that I'm using the word hate?

No. Because I feel like she so wonderfully created these characters that I felt. Dimension, nuance, humanity. I can't go love and hate heroes and villains. That it was too well written for these categories.

Well, there were just so many people that I felt like they were wrecking his life and they could have helped him more. All right, let's hear what some people are saying. So Heidi says she totally hated the stepdad. He started the downfall.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's kind of true.

Right?

Right.

Right.

He was horrible.

Right.

Emily says, dory is sad. Kate says, I pity Dory. Bethany says, Dory was such a hard character. Mt Sante says, I hated u haul all the way. A gray says dory was trouble.

Okay.

Jackie says, I loved Mrs. Peggot, but I was so mad she wouldn't take demon in. See, me too. Now tell me why you weren't mad about that.

Well, I wasn't there. There was. There was frustration that she wouldn't take demon in, but not hatred.

Well, I mean, hate is just a bottom shelf word.

It was frustrating.

Frustrating.

Understood. Somehow I understood.

Okay. Dory was so sad but selfish. Let's see. Okay. Somebody says, nana says, I felt bad for Dory. She needed love. Maggots. Dad.

Yeah.

Dory was a great character.

She was a great character.

Great character.

I, I. My sister and my mom while they were reading. Hey, Emily, if you're on, did you skip to the end of the book? We all need to know. They kept. My mom and my sister kept texting me. And you kind of did, too. You didn't ask me as much because you don't like to know the end. But they kept texting me, like, does this book get better? Does this book get better? And I kept texting, like, do you really want to know? Ashley says, I wanted coach to do more for him. I thought it was the break he needed. Now, that was like the breath of. You needed a breath of air. And the coach and what was the other girl's name? I forget. Hold on, let me look it up. The coach's daughter. How could I forget her name? Her name was not Emmy. That's the one I'm thinking of.

No, they'll show you on the.

Yeah, they'll tell me. Why can't I. Angus. Angus. She was a great character.

Incredible character.

Oh, Jody Jennings read the book, too. He said, I like the Indian store owner guy, how he gave him the hot dogs. This poor kid is so hungry.

Please give him some hot dogs.

There comes. There's Angus. All right. So we talked about what we loved. We talked about what we hated. You know, one of the things that you told me that you loved about the book, Babe, is how it started in one time with one character, and it never, like, went forwards and backwards. It only went forward in time.

I mean, yes, I saw David Copperfield flows, too.

Yeah.

But I haven't read it.

I think that's pretty hard to pull off, though, to not be able to go back and give any kind of backstory pretty much on anything. Anything else you want to say before you. Before we. You want to meet Barbara?

Me?

Yeah. I gotta meet Barbara.

Okay.

I'm so amazed by Barbara.

All right.

You have anything else to say about what you loved about the book?

I'm just this book club. No, I'll stand. Okay.

Guys, can we get Barbara on? You've heard enough of us.

Hello. Hi. Finally. I was here the whole time. Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you. And I saw. I saw your name on there, so I knew. I knew you were here, so. Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for being on here tonight. I had this whole thing I was going to introduce you with all of your awards and nominations. I don't know if everybody knows.

Don't do that. Don't waste time.

We really love this book. We really, really loved it. There's nothing like reading a book that makes. That you can't put down, but that also makes you love something and cheer for someone, but also learn about a situation at the same time. Time and just. Well done.

Well, thank you. What I heard a lot of in your talking and also seeing in the comments is that people felt compassion for a sort of character that they really didn't know before, hadn't thought that much about before. Also, that everyone wanted to adopt Demon. That makes me so happy because that's why I write. It's really why I wrote this book, because I live here in Southwest Virginia. Demons home is my home. I know these kids. Everything that happened in this book has happened to someone I know or me, but mostly other people that I know. So this is all real. And I live in a part of the country that does not get very, very much attention from the outside world. And if. If we show up, if Appalachians show up on TV or in the movies, you know what we are? We're dumb hillbillies. And it's not fair and it's not right, and it makes a lot of people here really bad. So I sort of feel like I have a Part of my job is to represent, you know, my people and our problems in a way that will just bring some compassion.

Yeah. And you did that. And you did it so well. But also making the scenery and the description like you wanted to be there. One of my favorite parts was at the very end of the book when you talked about being country poor and city poor. And then you go on and you describe what it's like to live in the country. I don't even. I don't wanna waste time on that.

But it was.

The whole book was just so beautifully done. I want you to start off by just reading us an excerpt from the book, because I love to hear authors read their own story in their own words. We actually have an ongoing argument because Stephen doesn't love audiobooks because he feels like the narrators interpret the story in a way that you may or may not interpret it if you were just reading it with your eyes. And so.

But I had my own demon.

Yeah. Kind of like when you go to the movies and that the character that's made from a book and nobody looks right because they're not the characters you had in your mind. Well, I can tell you something. I normally. I almost always narrate my own audiobooks for that reason. I want readers to hear the way these characters. The way, you know, the way I.

Meant for them to be.

Exactly. But in this case, seemed like. I mean, I could pull off the voice of a teenage boy on the page, but maybe, you know, in your ear, it would feel a little distracting to hear me talking about, you know, like, my girlfriend and all that. So. Anyway, so. But I thought. I chose Charlie Thurston.

I thought he was gonna make it easy.

I thought he did a fantastic job. So. Sure, I. I'm gonna. Would you like me to read? Yes. Okay. Stephen. Sorry.

No, I heard you, though. I heard you the whole time.

Okay. You don't mind?

I watched your interview when you shared the book before it was out, so I already had you in my head, so then the audible threw me off.

Okay. Well, I'm going to read just from the very beginning of the book, just the first page. Okay. First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they've always given me that much. The worst of the job was up to me. My mother being, let's just say, out of it. On any other day, they'd have seen her outside on the deck of her trailer home, Good neighbors taking notice, pestering trouble as they will all through the dog breath air of late summer and fall. Cast an eye up the mountain and there she'd be, Little Bleach blonde smoking her Pall Malls hanging on that railing like she's captain of her ship up there and now might be the hour it's going down. This is an 18 year old girl we're discussing all on her own and as pregnant as it gets. The day she failed to show it fell to Nance Peggott to go bang on the door, barge inside and find her passed out on the bathroom floor with her junk all over the place and me already coming out a slick fish colored hostage picking up grit from the vinyl tile, worming and shoving around because I'm still inside the sack that babies float in Pre Real Life Mrs. Peggot, I'm sorry. Mr. Peggot was outside idling his truck headed for evening service, probably thinking about how much of his life he'd spent waiting on women. His wife would have told him the Jesusing could hold on a minute. First she needed to go see if the little pregnant gal had got herself living flickered up again. Mrs. Paget being a lady that doesn't beat around the bushes and if need be will tell Christ Jesus to sit tight and keep his pretty hair on. She came back out yelling for him to call 911 because a poor child is in the bathroom trying to punch himself out of a bag like a little blue prize fighter. Those are the words she'd use later on, being not at all shy to discuss the worst day of my mom's life and if that's how I came across to the first people that laid eyes on me, I'll take it to me that says I had a fighting chance. Long odds. Yes I know. If a mother is lying in her own piss and pill bottles while they're slapping the kids she's shunted out telling him to look alive. Likely that sucker is doomed. Kid born to the junkie will be a junkie. He'll grow up to be everything you don't want to know. The rotten teeth and dead zone eyes, the nuisance of locking up your tools in the garage so they don't walk off the rent by the week motel squatting well back from the scenic highway. This kid, if he wanted a shot at the finer things should have got him delivered to some rich or smart or Christian non using type of mother. Anybody will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get out, win or lose. Me though, I was a born sucker for the superhero rescue. Did that line of work even exist in our trailer home universe? Had they all quit Smallville and gone looking for bigger action? Save or be Saved. These are questions. You want to think it's not over till the last page, and it isn't.

And I was hooked from the very beginning. And in a lot of books, you know, you take time to get into, but I was hooked from right there.

Barbara is first I got myself born. Your best opening sentence of all time.

Well, I basically took it from Charles Dickens.

How is that sentence on his chapter.

One, I am born. That's how David Copperfield starts.

Not as good. First I got myself born.

Yeah. First I got my. So, yeah, that's. And David Copperfield says in Dickens novel, he says, whether I am to be the hero of my own story remains to be seen. He asked the same question that my demon does save or be saved. These are questions. But that when I read that line, after I decided to kind of use Dickens as a sort of template for the template for this book, I saw that. Whether that line about being the hero of my own story, and that gave me the idea of superheroes, that this kid would be obsessed with superheroes because it seems like a modern. Well, you know, it's a very, very ordinary thing for little boys to love superheroes, but especially in his situation where no human and his is on his radar, that's going to save him. And it's a very natural thing for him to imagine, like, superpowers, and he starts assigning. He starts looking at people and seeing their superpowers. So it was kind of a way into the story. But, yeah, I'm glad you liked that opening.

Okay, so take us back, because I. We both watched your conversation with Ann Padgett, who I also am a big fan. I've tried to get her to be on book club. Um, but I loved your conversation with her. And you. You talked about how Ann says that writing a novel is like walking around a house and looking for the key.

Yeah. And then.

And then you tell this story about how. How you knew you wanted to write about Appalachia and about this boy, but.

You didn't know how to do it, right. Well, I didn't. I didn't know about the boy. I. I knew I wanted to write about this. This area, this. These counties where I live, right. Right around here, which is ground zero of the opioid addiction. We were chosen, you know, by Purdue Pharma. We were targeted. This place and the. The wreckage that has been left. We have a generation of kids growing up orphaned by addiction, and that's really important. It's something so important that's happening here that, you know, just. I Wanted people to know. And it's a. It's a dark subject. Yeah. And so I spent several years trying to figure out how can I tell the story that won't be, you know, just won't turn people away, you know, that will engage people and want them to care. And that's. And David Copperfield was the key. When I realized that this is what Dickens did. He told these dark stories about poverty and institutional poverty and what it does to kids especially. And what he told me, but Dickens told me was, you let the kid tell the story. And when I got that message, which came in a very unusual way, tell.

About it, where were you?

Well, I mean, it's a story I've told a lot of times. But long story short, I was at the end of a book tour in London and I had a weekend to kill. And I booked myself into this bed and breakfast which had been Charles Dickens home. And his was still there and his desk. And they. There was nobody else. It was November. It wasn't, you know, a very busy time. It was cold and rainy and, you know, horrible weather. And so they said, just, you know, make yourselves at home. And I just went and sat at Charles Dickens desk and his, you know, his stuff was there. And I was looking out the window. It was nighttime. And I just felt this rage coming up through the floor, through sort of my feet and through the wood of that desk. And I just felt the presence of. Of this man who really spent his whole life protesting against the way Victorian society treated poor people and kids. Because that was his background and David Copperfield was his story. That was the most autobiographical of his books. And it had never been particularly my favorite book. But that night when I had that sort of, you know, communion with Dickens and his anger, I understood that the key is you let the child tell the story. Because that innocence, that hopefulness, you know, that all kids are born with, that sort of, you know, need to be protected, that was the way in. And so I immediately thought of my demon, Copperhead with red hair. And he would be in Melungeon. And it just all came to me. And I started writing the book on his desk that night on Charles Dickens's desk. So, you know, much has been made of, oh, do I have to read? Do I have to read Dickens first? Do I have to read? You don't. It's completely irrelevant, as you have said, if you. I kind of prefer that you don't read it first if you. If you haven't, because it'll give away the ending. It'll give away a lot. It'll give away a lot of the plot because I really followed his plot very closely. And the characters all correlate to characters. There. There's an Angus, her name is Agnes in the book, which actually, my Angus is really Agnes as well. There's. The fast forward character is called Steerforth, and he's a sociopath, as my fast forward is. So there the characters correlate and the plot correlates. But I had to bring it all into a modern, you know, sort of. Yeah, but you.

You act like that wasn't a. That wasn't a hard thing to do because you took, like.

It was very hard, though, you know, I mean, it took years and years. No, I'm not saying it was easy, but it's. You know, it's my job. And I love. I love it. I love that I get to get up every morning and go to my desk and make up stories. That's like, what could be better? But. No, but I love a challenge, and I really enjoyed that challenge of. And the thing is, if it wasn't gonna work, it was. I would have thrown it away. You know, I wasn't gonna. I wasn't married to that idea. I just thought, huh, let's see if this works. And I actually kind of laid it out all on spreadsheets, all the chapters, and I sort of tracked. I worked out my, you know, my plot, my characters, and I saw that it was gonna work beautifully. And so I just said, well, thanks, Charles. Good go. Nice job. Nice partnership. But it doesn't. It's. The book is its own story. And you really do not have to read David Copperfield, but if you. If you do, after you've read my novel, you will. You'll be in on, you know, like, a thousand private jokes. You know, all these little jokes.

I mean, I didn't read the book. I watched the movie, and I was like, you know, the character Peggy, and I was like, oh, my gosh.

But you took a woman and then.

You made her a couple instead of. And it was just like so many of the characters that are. You didn't. I mean, was there anything that you left out? Was there any part of his plot that you were like.

There were a few sort of blind alleys, like two thirds of the way through where he goes to law school. That wasn't going to happen for Demon, but. And there were some characters, like, in David Copperfield, Murdstone, which is Stoner, the evil stepfather who comes in. He actually has a sister named Jay Murdstone. That was too much. Just one stoner was enough. So I did, you know, I pared things down. But it was also really fun to think of a sort of. To make these translations. Like, for example, the pegate's. Well, there's Pegate, the woman who's like the grandmother next door. She's the woman who always really looks after David when his mother can't. But she has this whole extended family, as the Pegatees are. And some of. When he goes to visit them, they live in this upside down boat. They live in an overturned boat. So. So that was my. I had June Peggott and Emmy Peggott live in a geodesic dome, which he describes as like an upside down boathouse. And of course, none of them can say it. He calls it a geographic dome and every kind of thing. But, you know, it's this funny house that looks like an upside down boat. So it's just fun to do that. But fundamentally, the plot was, you know, sort of. I. I laid down the tracks of the plot, and then I just really enjoyed delving into these characters and making them my own. And I. It was so interesting that when you. When you were. You were listing and everyone was letting the litany of. Of hate, hatred. I'm gonna go with your husband. I didn't hate anybody. And I feel like that's. That's. It's really. The novelist's job is to find sympathy with every single character, even the really awful ones. Because if I don't. Because I have to write them from the inside. Right. So they will be convincing. And. No, none of these people hate themselves. I mean, there are people who hate themselves, but they're not, you know, they're not the. The people that we end up hating. They're, you know, they're sort of more sad and we feel sorry for them. But. But even like Hitler, he thought he was great. He thought he was doing a wonderful. You know, he thought he was a public servant.

Right.

His mother loved him. You know, so as a novelist, I have to get really deep inside all of these characters and find what they love about themselves. And also, what are they afraid of? Because fear is almost always driving bad behavior. Yeah, right. Hurtful behavior. And so I had to get inside of, you know, well, Stoner, he was. He was tough. I probably have the least sympathy for him because he had a lot of power.

Yeah.

But. But, you know, the poor Mrs. Macabre, I mean, she. She was so. She was, you know, with her. With her babies and her kids. And her poverty and everything, Selling all.

Of her stuff all the time.

Right? Yeah. And her parents, who didn't, you know, were so condescending. Why did you marry that loser? And everything, you know, and, you know, she was just driven by her material wants and her fear of being perceived as poor, which is such a. Such a. Such a big part of poverty in our society. Poverty is equated with shame. And because we have this myth, you know, if you're smart enough and if you work hard, anybody can be rich in America, which is absolutely not true, but we still internalize that. So if we're poor, we feel like, I must not be smart or I must not be working hard. So all that, you know, I just really had to think hard, long and hard about what was moving these characters. So even if. And you're allowed to hate them if you want to, but I had to find what. What made them tick, you know, what makes them the person they are. And certainly I didn't hate Dory. I loved Dory. It was so hard to. Listen. You think it's hard to read a book like this? It is hard to write a book like this. That scene in the gas station that everybody mentioned, I just broke down into tears every time I tried to write it. And then I had to walk away from my desk and say, can I. Can he keep his money? Can he get away? No, he cannot. We have to do this. But, you know, I also, you know, and the sadness of Dory, you know, just the slow, slow descent and, you know. You know, you see it coming. You know where she's going. Yeah. And when it finally happens, he's almost relieved. Yeah. He's almost like, she's free now because he knows he was. It broke him that he couldn't save her. And so anyway, I mean, there's. Fast Forward was the hardest character to write because he is a sociopath. That's what he was in Dickens. In the Dickens novel, which was, I thought, was very interesting. In Victorian times, they didn't have that diagnosis, I feel pretty sure. But that's exactly what he was. And that's a hard character to write, because the tricky thing about a sociopath is that they're very appealing, very attractive people. They get you to want. You want, as Demon always says, you wanted to be on the. Like you. Yeah. You would do anything for him to like you. And at the same time, you kind of feel it coming. He is so evil. He. He doesn't. He wants. He wants the love. He wants the attention, but he doesn't give anything back. He's just a user. And it takes, you know, poor Demon longer to realize that than it probably, you know, took the rest of us. But he, he's a kid and he's desperate for people to look up to.

Yeah, and he's a kid of the system too, right? He never had anybody who loved him or who cared for him. And so how would he even know how to do that?

Exactly. Demon admires him because he also came up in the foster care system and he seems to be successful. And so Demon's like, watch and learn. So, yeah, just sort of giving you an inside look at, you know, what kids do when the only options they have are, you know, bad and worse and survival. Survival, yeah, it comes down to that. Survival. And poor Mrs. Paget. I mean, yeah, of course we wished. We wished that she would have taken him in, but she is so tired. I mean, come on, she raised. She raised eight kids. Then she raised, you know, poor maggot. And, you know, she, she's, she's. She raised Demon and she just wants to be a grandma. She's, she's, she's. And she's afraid, you know, again, it's fear. She sees these boys are going to be teenagers. She's already lost two of her kids to, you know, to sort of the vicissitudes of teenage life. And she's afraid of failing. She just wants somebody else to do it. She doesn't, you know, she doesn't want. I mean, she wants Demon to be saved, but she feels like someone else should do it.

Don't you think she probably told herself the story that the foster care system is okay and they'll take care of.

Them, of course, because this Mrs. You know, they've talked to Ms. Barks. Ms. Barks says, don't worry, we'll find somebody. Because, you know, that's her job. She has to say that. But. And, and that's another whole thing. I'll tell you. When I was researching, because I had to do a lot of research. I do live here and I am surrounded, you know, but I know a lot of pretty. Pretty much every family I know has been touched by addiction. But I still had to know the details. Like how does a foster system work? How does DSS work? How is a kid removed? And what are the rules? And I was amazed to learn that the foster care system is a for profit business.

Yeah, that's insane.

How does that make sense? I mean, that it's run by companies, you know, so these kids are products which Demon, you know, finally. When he finally realizes that, he's like, okay, yeah, done. I don't. I don't really. I really don't have to try to believe in this anymore.

Give me my jar, and I'm gonna hitchhike. I'm gonna have to figure this out on my own.

I'm so, so out of here. Yeah. And I'll depend on my guys. I'll depend on. You know, good thing I don't have to depend on adults. So, yeah, it was. There were a lot. And I became friends with. With a number of people who have been through, you know, this really terrible journey into addiction and through rehab so that I could. Because I, you know, had to know the specifics that fortunately, I didn't already know. Okay, here's this pill. How. How does. How does the pill go into the veins? You know, what are the steps? I had to. I had to know, you know, a lot of. A lot of specific information. And I could only find that out by. By, you know, getting to know people who have been there and hearing their stories. All young people, mostly young women, became my, you know, these informants that. Who became friends, who I talked with again and again, and I just listened to their stories. And every single one started with a legal prescription, a prescription from a doctor every single one of these women had. Had gone into addiction with, starting with a bottle of pills because of a work injury or, you know, some kind of an injury. A doctor saying just what the drug company told them. Take these on the hour. Don't miss one. Stay ahead of the pain. Take them around the clock. Whatever, you know, whatever the regulate, the rules are, Take them, take them, take them. And by the time they finish that first bottle, they were already addicted. Addicted. So that they. If they didn't get more pills, they were desperately sick. That's what oxy did to people here. That's what Purdue did to here. And they lied. You know, Purdue, it lied. They produced false studies and false data convincing these doctors that this was a miracle drug, that it's not addictive. And so many people became addicted and didn't even know that that was the problem. They just knew they were really sick. And they kept going back to the doctor saying, I need more of those pills because I feel terrible. The myth is that, well, so many myths that addicted addicts are bad people. It's moral failure. It's a disease, and nobody wants to go there. And most addicted people are not chasing high. They're trying not to be dopesick. And it takes so Much energy. As Demon says at one point. You have no idea what hard. It's the hardest work in the world to be addicted. Every day starts with this really difficult job. Finding your means, finding your connect, getting your stuff so that you won't feel like you're gonna die. So one thing I hope from this book is that people can perhaps reassess the, these messages that we've gotten for, honestly 50 years. The so called war on drugs is 50 years old. And it's, you know, it's propaganda that that's given to kids in school. I mean, my kids all went to these, you know, the day our officer would come and talk. And it's, it's criminalizing addiction instead of explaining it as a disease that can be treated and can be cured, but it can only be treated with, with medicine and medical assistance and compassion. And, and if, if, if, if you just put people in jail, that doesn't cure addiction any more than it, it, it cures cancer.

Right?

Um, so, so yeah, so you're reading.

So you're doing all this research, you're talking to people, you're writing, you're living with these characters. I mean, are you able to sleep at night? Like, have you, have you ever written a book that, that, that affected you? Like, I feel like you're saying that this book affected you.

Well, every book, you know, every book takes you, takes you somewhere. It takes you a lot of places. It takes you away from your family, it takes you away from your, you know, your safety. It's an interesting job, it's voluntary. And yet once you've committed, you know, you have to go the distance. But this book, yes, was especially hard because it's a kid. I can't even. I have a really hard time reading books about anything when something, when it looks like something bad is gonna happen to a child in a novel. This is the only time I do this. I skim ahead, I look for the child's name. I want to make sure they're okay. And if they're not, you know, so, yeah, this was hard to write. So many days I would count, I would just, you know, I had to go into that dark place and be in that really sad, hopeless world that demon inhabited. And then I would have to come out of it and come, you know, come downstairs and make dinner. And some days it just felt, it was, it felt like too much, it was too hard. And that, those are the days that my dear husband, who's Stephen also Stephen, would take me by the hand and say, let's let's walk. We live in. We live in the. On a farm at the edge of the woods. And he would say, let's go for a walk. And we would just walk in the woods, and I would let the beautiful world come back to me. And I would just, you know, go through my. You know, go through my litany of gratitudes. My. My daughters are fine. We're all fine. We're okay. A lot of people aren't okay. But I'm doing what I can for the demons of this world. I mean, you know, I just have to make my peace day after day. But, yeah, it was. It was. It was hard. As hard as it is to read, it's that hard to write. Believe you me, to write. It wouldn't work. Do you know what I mean? I went in there with them.

Well, that's why it works, because you felt it first.

It wouldn't feel authentic if. If it weren't emotional for the writer.

So talk to me for a minute about the grittiness and the explicit content that was in this book, because I've read others of your books, and there's not as much of just the grit and the explicit situations. How did you decide? No, it need. This needs to be in here.

This is a. This is a story mostly of a teenage boy. And if, you know, teenage boys, that's the world. I mean, teenage. Not just boys. I mean, the. The like, we'll get through this. Many of the parents who are. Many parents who are trying to protect their children, you know, by. By censoring books in their libraries, have. Have no idea how. What their kids are hearing and probably saying at school. This. You know, it needed to. It would have been so ridiculous if Demon said, oh, darn. Oh, heck, let's face it. Although, you know, of course, it gave me pause. This isn't. He doesn't talk the way I talk. He doesn't. You know, I try not to talk like that, but I realized early on I wrote, oh, about the first 50 pages I gave to Stephen, my husband, who's always my first reader. And he read through it and he said, this one is not going to be adopted into the high school curriculum. And I said, nope, you're right, it should be. But no, it won't be. After I'd written 100 pages, I did a. Just a, you know, like a word search to see how many f bombs Demon had dropped in. The first hundred pages was like 125. So I thought maybe I could scale that back. I went through and cut it back to like 70 or something. But, you know, he talks the way he talks because that's real. And also his, you know, the situations, the drugs, the, you know, the fact that he's basically living as an adult with his girlfriend when he's, when he's 17, that's real. And it's not glorified in this book. It is. It's laid out as a truth for these kids who have no adults in their lives. What else can they do? Demon essentially raised his own mother. You know, he was the one who got her to work on time and who, you know, found her keys for her and her shoes. And so, yeah, I hope that readers understand. I mean, once in a while I get letters from people saying, how can you use this language? And my answer is, I don't. Demon does. Demon is not me and he's not my children. But he's real. And he, he, he. If, if you, if, if. If you would help take care of the demons of the world, their, Their, their language would be better and a lot of other things would be better too. Right?

He's raising himself and, and letting other teenagers raise him. And, and yeah. And.

I think it's funny that you had to dial it back, not dial.

It up as you went.

Oh, no, I had to because I just. I kind of channeled this kid. I just heard him. I heard him talking. It was surprising how, how easily that, that, that, I mean, I don't just mean his language, but his vernacular, the way he talks is. Is pretty. That's my home language. And again, I'm not talking about the profanity, but the way like the whenever, like the way people say around here say whenever meaning when. Like whenever I went to the store means whenever I went this morning. You know what I'm talking about? All these idioms that he uses and all that, that's Appalachian talk. And it just came. It just. I just heard him and I just let him talk. Let him be who he was.

So you finished the story. And how do you move on from him?

Do you.

Where is he now?

He's. He's. He's still here, but I gave him a nice send off and I feel like I left him in a good place. And I can imagine him, you know, having. I hate to do spoilers, but I can imagine.

Oh, you can do spoilers.

I know, I know you said that. I still sort of. I still sort of shy away from it, but he's going to see the ocean. He's got a good woman, you know, she's gonna. She. And the most important thing, I think, is that he has. He has a good shot at staying in Lee county, which is what he wants. He wants. So the. The terrible conflict for so many people here is that it's hard to stay and it's hard to leave, you know, to leave family to the. Like, what Demon says is all you are, is all you've ever been. Like, when you're in a place where everybody has known you since you were literally born, it's so much. It's so important to you to maintain that community and that view in this beautiful place where we live, it's so hard to leave. But for kids like Demon, it's so hard to stay when, like, as the. As he says when he's. When he's thinking about going to that. That. That thing, you know, for his. Yeah, for. For Coach. And he says, well, every single person there would try to sell me drugs unless they liked me, and then they give them to me for free. So just. It's. It's. That's his dilemma. How to stay in a place where it's going to be so hard for him to. To be sober and to be, you know, to stay clean and stay sort of on track. But I think Angus. I think. I think he and Angus as a team can do it. That's what I think. So I left there, and I'm thinking about the next novel, and I'm also thinking about screenwriting because it looks like there's. There's a real good chance this is gonna go to. This. This is gonna go to. To the screen.

Man, I would be so scared if I were you to let this character.

Go to the screen, because I'm not letting him go. I write it, okay? I write it and I co produce. So that's. I'm very particular about. About that. I don't. A lot of writers just say, here you go, take. I'll take the check, and then I won't even watch the movie. But I don't. I don't do that. I stay really involved because the. The. I write about real people, and I mean, not real people, but you know what I mean? Real. Real categories of people. And I can't turn my back on them. I can't betray them. I can't risk them being turned into, you know, stereotypes or jokes on the screen. So I stay involved. So I will be a writer and I'll be an executive producer, and I will only work with people that really respect, you know, the characters and the mission, and they're out there. And it's really easy for me to say no to people that aren't, you know, aren't the right people. So that's. But I think it would be exciting for Demon to get, you know, it's just another level of audience because if I, you know, if I wrote this because I want, you know, our, Our. My people and these, you know, these people, struggling people to be seen, then I, I. Then it's worth. It's another work of them being seen. Yeah. You know.

Yeah.

I think that's what's next.

Oh, my goodness. And you're working on.

You just.

You turn in a book and then you turn right around and you're working on something new.

That's what I do. Yeah. Can you tell? I usually take a vacation in between. Did you take your vacation back to work? Pardon me?

Did you take the vacation yet?

I'm just about to. Okay. I'm just about. Yeah, yeah. Because I just really just finished book tour about a month ago. There's like, it goes on. Well, this is part of it, you know, this part of. This part of the book goes on. You know, after the book is published, there's about three months where I just talk about the book and talk about the book. Then I take a vacation and then.

Can you give us any, Any sneak peeks into. Into what you're working on?

Well, the script, the screenwriting is actually. That's going to be. This. This year will be probably. Probably Demon, Copperhead, and also another. Another one of my books is. Is likely to be adapted to feature film, and I'll be writing that too. So. So. And I have another novel. It's. It's like on the back burner. I know what. I know what it's going to be about. I actually have a whole lot of it kind of mapped out.

I love it.

Do we take it. Do we take questions from the audience? I don't. I've seen all these wonderful hearts going up, but I haven't read the comments.

Okay. I mean, we can take a few, but I want to honor your time if you're. If you'd like to do that.

I think the main thing we might have to honor is my phone's battery because I gotta. If I just suddenly evaporate, you'll know. I started with 100%, I swear, but it's draining pretty quick.

I'll close this off. Okay. If you go away, I'll close it down. So my sister Emily is always on. She wants to know if the book that you're taking to film is the Poisonwood Bible.

It is not. It is not. Good guess. Actually, I've been working on and off for about 15 years on that one. And it turns out it's very, very hard to adapt for a number of reasons. All kinds of both technical, sociological, cultural, many reasons.

Well, it spans like, like 50 years or so. I mean it's like the whole lifetime of the girl.

Yes. And I've actually worked on it as a limited series which, which is the only way it would be possible to do it in like, like basically a 10 hour movie. But there are other, there are other difficult things too. It's what I would boil it down to this. It's a. To work on this film, I really want to work with African film professionals. Okay. And there. And it's very hard to do that. It just so, so that one will have to wait. I think it'll happen eventually. But no, the next one will be Flight Behavior.

Oh, I read that one too.

Okay.

Somebody says this, this is Ms. Niss says, would you write a book based from Emmy's perspective? Like, have you ever considered doing, you know, a spin off or a sequel of something you've already written?

No. No, because I'm done. What I love about being a novelist is that I get to do something completely new every time. When I was in college, I was that kid who wanted to major in everything. Every class I took I was like, whoa, whoa. Computer programming, Whoa. Asian history. Wow. Anthropology. I wanted to, I would percent battery. So that's what makes you a great.

Author, because you're willing to go research anything.

That's exactly it. I mean, I ended up majoring biology and anthropology and graduate a graduate degree in ecology and evolutionary biology. But really I just, I love starting over every time and just do. It's like every, every novel is kind of like a PhD. You just get to dive into this deep, deep research. You get to interview people. You just get to learn about a whole new subject, whole new professions. Because everybody in your novel has to have a job or they don't have a job. But you know, you have to know every. And in the novel you have to be as smart as everybody in your novel. You can't just say, then the physicist said something really physicy. You know, you're like, you have to know what he says, right? And it has to be right. You know, So I love that part of it. I love learning new stuff and setting up a whole new question. Basically, I start with a question and then I construct a plot that will get people to not necessarily answer it, but get the reader to ask these questions for themselves. And when I'm done, I'm so happy that I did that, but I want to do something new. However, if you want you. Whoever made that suggestion, if you want to invent Emmy's story, go for it. You know, because that's. As a writer, I'm giving you these characters to, you know, to have and to hold. You can. You can imagine any fate for them that you want. It's. They're yours.

I love that. All right, so Spotted Puppy 3 wants to know, and I would like to know this also. How long did it take you to write Demon Copperhead? From the time that you sat at Dickens desk to the time that you turned in the manuscript? Because I feel like you take your time writing a book. Like you're not trying to crank out a book every 18 months.

I am not. I could not. I couldn't write. No, the novels that I write take longer than that. It was about three years from. From Dickens desk to turning in the manuscript. That's. I think that's right. And however I'm always. When I'm writing a book, I'm always thinking about something else. So this, I think, is my 17th book.

That's what I count. I counted 17 today.

Yeah. And I've. And I've been doing this for about. About 30, 34 years. I can't. I guess. So that comes out to almost, you know, it's pretty close to one to every other year. On average. On average. But sometimes, like, some take much longer and some are a little faster. But I've never written a novel in less than a year. That's unimaginable. Less. I mean, two years would be the minimum.

Okay.

Because it's just. Because I don't just write. I mean, I don't just research it and write it. I rewrite it. I rewrite. Every. Every sentence in this book has been revised between 8 and 28 times. I mean, every. Everything gets rewritten. The whole sections get thrown out. It gets rearranged. You know, the first draft is just the beginning. The revision is the beautiful part that takes. You know, that takes years.

That's what makes you good. All right, Missy. No, I said that's what makes you good.

Oh, thank you. But really, that's where the revision is, I think. In any. In any art form, anything. It's the revision. You know, the refinement is where the art happens. You don't just slap. I mean, maybe Jackson Pollock, you Know, threw paint at a canvas. But I still think, you know, he.

Painted the same painting a thousand times.

Well, but, you know, but then he would stand back and say, no, I need to throw more yellow. You know, I mean, there's always. There's always a process of refinement and revision. And for me, that's my favorite part because I love language so much.

So you're a vision addict, would you say?

I would hesitate to use that word, but I would say I love it. I get great pleasure from revision.

I don't find.

I don't find it difficult. I find it very joyful, you know, just to, like, take a sentence and just keep working it and working it until it just sings. And when you get every word, when every word is the right word, there's just this burst of endorphins. So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's great. I love my job.

Kelly, Dottie wants to know who is your favorite author and what are you currently reading? This is one of my favorite questions to ask authors. So thank you, Kelly, for asking that.

I can't name a favorite because I have so, so many favorites. I love, like, from, from the beginning. I mean, I. In early days, I loved Doris Lessing. She was very important to me. I love John Steinbeck. I loved Dickens. But now, you know, and the last several books I've read in a row, see, I always go blank, too. That's the worst part. I go blank. The last four or five books that I read in a row, and I'm gonna just call them up here to see what am I. What have I been reading? Oh, I read Horse by Geraldine Brooks, which I really loved. I really like Geraldine Brooks. I loved Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I didn't expect to. I am not a gamer. I didn't imagine that I would love that book so much, but I really did.

I agree.

Because it's not about gaming. It's about friendship. Yeah. And. And. And sort of the. How life has many chapters and how rare it is for one friend to be able to. To go through all of them.

It was a good book.

What else?

Now you're making me rethink if I should try and make it book club.

I'll tell you, it gave me more sympathy for more. More empathy with gaming. I never really had that much respect for now I do.

For what goes into it.

Yeah. Yeah, for what goes into it. And that also for players, that there's more story involved. It's not just. Yes, I raised two daughters. As far as we went with gaming was Oregon Trail and Barbie Pet Rescue. So. So I never, you know, I didn't have a kid who just went into that world, as so many kids do. And so I was really glad to get more, you know, sort of more. More. More understanding of it. So I liked that a lot. I liked. Now is not the time to panic. I. I've seen that cheating here. It's terrible. I hate it. But I forget.

So you read on a Kindle. Are you looking at, like, an E reader?

I am. Oh. Sea of tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. Okay, Amazing book.

Talk to me about that one for a second. Talk me into reading that book. Because I read and you watched the show. The. It's Losing Me. They made the show about it.

Oh, station. Yeah. Okay. I didn't read that. This was my first. Emily St. John Mandel. I am not that into time travel or science fiction. That's not my thing. I loved this book. It was about. And again, just like tomorrow and tomorrow. Tomorrow was not really about gaming. This isn't really about time travel. It's. It's. It's about. Oh, gosh, how can I sum it up? It's about revisiting our, like, revisiting our choices and how we live with our choices. It's just so good. I really recommend it. I loved it. I loved Matrix by Lauren Groff, and it's about medieval nuns. And there's another subject I would not have expected to be that interested in, but it's really about female power and about how women, in this time when women had no other power, it's just. It's fascinating. Really, really good. So, yes, I recommend that. And Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

That's another book I was scared to read.

Read it. It's absolutely wonderful. That's probably the best book I read last year. Really? Yeah. I'm just.

I don't like fantasy.

I'm not either. I mean, it's not. It's not my thing. But this is so good. So, yeah, I recommend. I heartily recommend all of those books. And I'm really picky. I don't. I mean, I probably start three books for everyone. I finish. Life is too short to read a book you don't love. There's. There are too many of them left that you never get to. I'm giving you permission. Look, from that. From the wisdom of my white hair. I'm saying, honey, don't waste time on a book that you don't love.

So we go back and forth about this we go back and forth about.

This, but I feel like, sorry, sorry.

What if you give up too soon? Because there have been books that I have hung with for more than half, and then it turns. Or sometimes I go all the way to the end and it's like the last, you know, whatever fraction of the book, and I'm like, oh, I see what they were doing that whole time. Yeah, I think I kind of like that. So I'm afraid of missing that.

Oh, okay. If a friend tells you, hang in there, you know, then that's another thing. Like, you know, ask someone else who's read it, should I hang in there? And why. But I'm just. I'm just giving you permission, that's all. If you want to quit a book. I quit books all the time.

He does too, but I feel like he doesn't finish enough books.

Well, we all have.

But anyway, I didn't have to work to finish Demon.

All I'm saying is I'm. I'm a very particular reader. It has to be about for me to love a book. It has to be beautifully written and about something worthwhile, just about something that matters. I don't read Fluff, so these books that I've just listed, I think are great. I recommend them. See what they're all saying. Yeah. What are they all saying? He actually.

He preached a sermon this weekend called Permission to Quit. That was literally the title of his sermon. So everybody's laughing and saying, permission to quit.

Yeah, that's. That's what I'm saying. No, there is something. I mean, loyalty is valuable. Of course. Loyalty. And of course I'll give a book 50 pages. Absolutely. I'm not going to quit. Oh. I mean, okay, there are books that I just read the first paragraph, and I know that's not going to work for me, but. But I think often we. If we are a certain type of person, we can take loyalty to a fault. We can waste too much of our souls on endeavors that don't. Aren't. Worthy. Did I just give your sermon, Pastor Steve?

I gotta say, you did. You made me want to go part two this Sunday.

Okay. Okay. I found my calling anyway. And you asked what I. What I was looking at. I read on my iPad. I did not have a Kindle because. Well, I'm just gonna say Amazon is not my friend. Amazon is not good. Amazon is just trying to put all booksellers out of business, and that's. That would be a horrible loss. So that's my little commercial. So I don't do I don't have a Kindle, but I do. I do read ebooks on, on my iPad. I buy them from there. You can buy them in a way that helps independent bookstores.

Is it Libro?

Yes, yes.

I like them for the audiobooks too.

Yeah. And so I, I'm for reading in any format. People, my kids who are millennials, read mostly through their ears because that's the way they can. That's the way they have time to read because they're, you know, like when they're driving to pick up their kids or whatever, driving to work. And I'm all for it. I will. I support reading in any, you know, through any organs that work. And I love ebooks for. Because I can carry five of them. When I go on a, you know, a flight, like a long flight. I can take five books and quit on three of them.

All right, here's my last question. Okay, here's my last question. And then I'm gonna let you go. And thank you so much for being on extra long with us tonight. If this was some. If Demon Copperhead was somebody's first Barbara King Solver book, what would you say? All right, you're the next one you should read. Is this one of your books?

It depends on who you are. I mean, I get letters just about every day saying, this One of my 17 books is their favorite one. The Bean Trees, which I wrote, whatever it was, that was my first novel 34 years ago. I was child. There's still people who say that's their favorite book. If you like sci, if you're a scientist or like a biology person or sort of a nature loving person, you should read Prodigal Summer because that is my biology novel. If you. The Poisonwood Bible seems to stand as, you know, like what a lot of people think is, is whatever good, really good, whatever. Animal Dreams, which was my second novel, seems to. It's a. It's a theme about sort of going home and finding what you missed, like figuring out how to fit in again so that a lot of people relate to that. My novel before, for this one, my most recent. Oh, okay. My husband's favorite is the Lacuna. He thinks that was the best one. I think he likes Demon Copperhead as well as that. And then the novel just before this one was unsheltered. And that is about paradigm shift, like how we deal with this feeling that the world is coming apart at the seams, that all the old rules don't apply anymore. That was the one before this one. So there's A little synopsis that's on my list.

Unsheltered is my. My next Barber King solver book that I.

Okay, good, Good. I like to think that I'm getting better. You know, I like to think each book is better than the one before. That's. That's, you know, that's a goal, whether you're, you know, a tennis player or what. All the. Although authors have a great advantage over athletes, we don't age out, you know, we get better as we. As we age, instead of having to, you know, retire at 30 with CTE or whatever or bad knees. So I like to think that. But it's also kind of heartening to me that when I hear from someone who's maybe like 25 or 30, and they just read this novel that I wrote when I was close to that age, and this really spoke to me, I like the idea that there have been many. I've been many different writers over time, and that one isn't better than the other. The great thing about literature is it's. Every book is a different experience for every reader. And that's a beautiful thing that we can take it, that we can take books personally. And they. They make us different people because they. They bring. They bring us empathy and compassion for people who are other than us. And I think the world really needs that, if I'm allowed to preach. The world needs empathy right now.

Yeah.

Because we have a lot of people that are hating on each other, and it's getting us nowhere. So if we can read about people who are different from us, put our lives aside for a while and go into another life and really understand where they're coming from, I think that's going to make the world better.

That's what I think is the power of fiction and the power of stories is that they invoke empathy in a way that something realistic wouldn't. I think we just lost Barbara.

How.

How sad. But perfect. We're coming to an end.