Join us for an in-person lit lecture and discussion to kick off adult summer reading!

“Not that I’m any witness”: Bearing Witness to Southern Appalachia through the Eyes of a Child.

This presentation on Barbara Kingsolver’s poignant 2022 novel, Demon Copperhead privileges the voice of the vulnerable and resilient child narrator: “a little blue prizefighter,” as he is described on the novel’s opening page. It is this voice that guides us through life in the mountains of Southern Appalachia. Like Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield—its 19th century predecessor and intertext—Demon Copperhead is a both a coming-of-age story and a social justice novel, one that bears witness to the too-often forgotten realities of the people of Appalachia.

Dr. Aimee Pozorski has authored Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works (Continuum, 2011), Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature (Bloomsbury, 2014), and AIDS-Trauma and Politics (Lexington, 2019). She has edited or co-edited volumes on the topics of Philip Roth, American Modernism, and HIV/AIDS representation. With Maren Scheurer, she co-edits the peer-reviewed journal, Philip Roth Studies and co-edited the Bloomsbury Handbook to Philip Roth. She is Professor of English Department at Central Connecticut State University, and a regular presenter at the Avon Library!

Bring a friend or a member of your book club!

Sponsored by the Friends of the Avon Library.

Please register.