Excerpt from Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Fine, but why keep the thing up there, growing mold? Maggot told me Humvee had made it in Shop. Humvee being one of Maggot's uncles, last seen near a schoolhouse around the time of the Bee Gees or Elvis. By now it's the nineties. The Peggots kept this reject birdhouse up its pole all those years for what, to remember their son Humvee by? I didn't buy it. The Peggots had seven kids altogether, living as far away as Ocala Florida or as close as a mile away. Cousins without number roamed through that house like packs of half-broke animals with meal privileges. Every family member got talked to or talked about on a daily basis, except two: (1) Maggot's mom, (2) Humvee. One doing time in Goochland, one dead, for undiscussed reasons.

Besides the birdless birdhouse, they had a dog pen with no dog. Mr. Peggot used to run hounds before he got too tired for it like all the old men we knew, back whenever they still had the lungs for it, and dogs had foxes or bears to chase up a tree. In fall time he'd take us to the woods to hunt ginseng or dig sassafras because those can't outrun you. But mainly just to be out there. He knew bird tunes the way people know who's on the radio. After we got old enough to handle a rifle, nine or ten, he showed us how to take a buck, and how to heft up the carcass on the tree branch over the driveway to dress it out, letting loops of guts fall out steaming on the gravel. Mrs. Peggot cooked venison roast in the crockpot. You've not eaten till you've had that.

The empty dog pen stood between our trailer and the Peggot house. Maggot and I would put a tarp over it and sleep out there, usually if falling trees someplace took out the lines and we couldn't watch TV. One summer we did that for maybe a month, after a Nintendo Duck Hunt challenge where I accidentally let fly the controller gun and busted the screen. Maggot took credit for that deed so I wouldn't get sent home and skinned alive. Mrs. Peggot pretended to take his word for it, even though she heard the whole thing. Probably everybody has had some golden patch of life like that, where everything was going to be okay thanks to the people that had your back, and sadly you wasted it, by being ticked off over some ignorant thing like a busted TV.

The Peggot house sat up at the top of the road with woods all around. They had chickens at one time, including this rooster with the mind of a serial killer that gave me bad dreams. But not farmers proper. Likewise not the churchiest of people, but they were the ones that took me. Mom despised church, due to some of her fosters getting carried away with it, but I myself didn't mind. I liked looking at the singing women, and the rest you could sleep through. Plus that thing of being loved automatically, Jesus on your side. Not a faucet turned on or off, like with people. But some of the Bible stories I minded, definitely. The Lazarus deal got me mentally disturbed, thinking my dad could come back, and I needed to go find him. Mrs. Peggot told Mom I ought to go see Dad's grave in Tennessee, and they had a pretty huge fight. Maggot calmed me down by explaining Bible stories were a category of superhero comic. Not to be confused with real life.

As a kid you just accept different worlds with different rules, even between some houses and others. The Peggot home being a place where things got put where they went. Mr. Peggot would come home with the groceries and right away, in they'd go to the refrigerator. Maggot and I would get done having our World War III in the living room, and those Legos and crap got picked up before we went outside, or else hell would be paid. Not so at my house, where milk seemed like it had its own life to live and would sit out on the counter till it turned. Mom always said she'd lose her mind if it wasn't screwed in, and she wasn't wrong. Her work ID badge on the back of the toilet, makeup by the kitchen sink, purse outside under a chair. Shoes wherever. That was just Mom. In my room I tried to keep stuff put away, mainly my action figures and the notebooks I kept for my drawings. I asked Mom one time how to fix the bed so it was covered up like you see them on TV, which she thought was dead hilarious.

Excerpted from Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Copyright © 2022 by Barbara Kingsolver. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.