I have loved all of Barbara Kingsolver's books, especially ''Prodigal Summer,'' with its ecological overtones, and ''Unsheltered.'' Not long into this book you realize you've lost track of time and are turning pages unconsciously. You've been expertly caught and held by a writer with the shamanic gift of inhabiting, or being inhabited by, the people of her story and the culture they emerged from. You realize that you're being swept up in a hot bestseller and reading literature at the same time. What a rare treat that is.

Even so, ''Demon Copperhead'' may not be a book for everyone; living through disaster after harrowing disaster for several hundred pages can be depressing. But because we come to know the characters so well, and care so deeply about them, we are hooked, no matter how dark and fated their journey.

As in all great tales, light breaks through toward the end, and reading ''Demon Copperhead'' is an enriching, enlightening experience, deepening our world. Five stars seems hardly adequate..