I can always be hopeful of you

The brilliance of Demon Copperhead and Andor

Sometimes the hype is real.

Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Demon Copperhead and the highly acclaimed TV show Andor are better than advertised. Neither have been hyped enough in my opinion. Both made me feel like I was in the hands of masters. Both gave me the impression that they were made with thoughtfulness and effort. Both inspired me to live with more hope and optimism. These are all the feelings I’m always pursuing.

I admit that as I was reading Demon Copperhead, there were moments of hopelessness. Several, in fact. Things get bleak for young Demon, an orphan in Virginia who is caught in a vortex of poverty, neglect, and addiction. The adults in his life are mostly irresponsible and predatory. His peers are mostly aimless and drug dependent. It’s a credit to Kingsolver’s writing that I was so invested in Demon’s life that each devastating set back delivered an emotional upper cut square in the jaw.

Likewise, the heroes from Andor get put through the ringer. They are normal people — no lightsaber-wielding Force-users in this bunch — who put their lives and relationships at risk in their attempts to thwart the tyrannical Empire. It doesn’t always go well. Any small win still looks a lot like losing. And while we know Cassian Andor makes it to the events of Rogue One alive, we don’t know everything it cost him to get there until we see it play out.

In short, it got a little heavy as I was reading Demon Copperhead and watching Andor at the same time. Not exactly escapist entertainment during a time when escapist entertainment would sure be nice.¹ But there were bright spots along the way.

Demon gets a chance to feel truly alive and vibrant when he assists his wheelchair-bound uncle with flying a kite. Uncle Dick has a tradition of flying kites inscribed with his favorite book passages as a way to “return the blessing to the author” (I told my book club we are definitely flying kites with our favorite book quotes at our next meeting). In the scene with Demon, uncle Dick writes these words on the kite for his young nephew:

Never be mean in anything. Never be false. Never be cruel. I can always be hopeful of you.²

Uncle Dick, whose life is no cake walk, knows that no matter how bad it gets, there is always hope as long as Demon avoids the vices of meanness, falseness, and cruelty.

I love the line “rebellions are built on hope.” I first heard it in the 2016 Star Wars film Rogue One and heard it again in an Andor episode that I watched right around the time that I was finishing Demon Copperhead. It brought back to mind those words that uncle Dick wrote on the kite. The rebels were resisting cruelty and oppression and therefore had reason to hope.

Rebellions to stop galaxy-dominating empires are built on hope, but so are individual lives of orphan boys from Virginia. And so is your life and mine. Any effort to overcome tumultuous circumstances and achieve a more peaceful life is built on hope. And if it is done without being mean, false, and cruel, then there will always be reason to hope.

I hope you get a chance to read Demon Copperhead and/or³ watch Andor and if you do, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading,

Kyle

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1. Confession: There were certain moments when I had to set aside Demon Copperhead and escape into a chapter or two of Dungeon Crawler Carl, a silly lit-rpg fantasy that was so fun. More on that another time.

2. This passage comes from David Copperfield. Fun fact: Demon Copperhead is a modern retelling of the Dickens classic. I’m currently doing a slow tandem read of both and hope to report back later on how that goes.

3. See what I did there?