Daily Archives: October 18, 2024

The 10 Best Books for Understanding the Opioid Crisis

The opioid crisis and the punitively high cost of insulin seem like two sides of the same terrible coin: when healthcare is more about profit than healing. We are barely beginning to understand the full scope of the devastation wrought by the corporate pharmaceutical companies who prioritized stock price over pain relief and tore apart generations of American families. Below are ten books that shed a little light on that.Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
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Sam Quinones, Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (2015)
In Dreamland, journalist and author Sam Quinones “trace[s] connections between pill-pushing doctors in Portsmouth, Ohio, and heroin dealers from a town in Mexico… show[ing] us that doctors laid the groundwork for the influx of black-tar heroin by getting patients so hooked on OxyContin that they were desperate enough to turn to cheaper dope, any dope, when those pills ran out” (NYT Book Review).Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
Throughout Dreamland, Quinones’ thorough investigative reporting lends credence to a harrowing, hair-raising narrative. Quinones is, according to the SF Chronicle Book Review, “the most original writer on Mexico and the border out there.” The book begins at a pool in Portsmouth, Ohio called Dreamland; for decades Dreamland was the beating heart of this blue-collar American town. Today, Portsmouth is “a town of abandoned buildings at the edge of the Ohio River”—a portentous and tragic victim of the story to follow. In 2021, Sam Quinones published a second book about America’s drug crisis, titled The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, for further reading.
2015 NBCC Award for General Nonfiction • NYT Bestseller • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award • Slate’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years

Nico Walker, Cherry (2018)
Christian Lorentzen described Nico Walker’s Cherry “the first great novel of the opioid epidemic,” drawing comparisons to greats like Denis Johnson. The book, semi-autobiographically, narrates a nameless protagonist’s time in college, during the War in Iraq, and afterwards, home in America during the opioid crisis, as he struggles with addiction and robs banks. Writer and veteran Walker wrote the book from prison where he was doing time for bank robbery. “There’s a vivid, repulsive truth in the way Walker renders his subjects—a sort of social truth, stripped of morality, which is rare and riveting when it comes to the subjects of opioid addiction, intimate everyday cruelty, and endless, meaningless war.” –The New YorkerArticle continues after advertisementRemove Ads
PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist • National Bestseller 

Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son (1992)
Denis Johnson was an American great. Jesus’ Son is a classic of 20th-century American literature, a linked short story cycle narrated by a young man referred to only as “Fuckhead.” In the NYT, Johnson’s prose is judiciously compared to Beckett’s “in the trapdoor cadences and self-deprecating humor of their sentences” and it’s true. The sentences in Jesus’ Son are near perfect. They toggle between reverent in content, irreverent in style, and irreverent in content, reverent in style, strange, sibylline, human, profane, and they pile up into stories that so “flagrantly risk[] ‘insensitivity’ in an effort to depict the pathology of addiction” (NYT). So thoroughly do they do it that they might never leave you.
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Beth Macy, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America (2018)
Dopesick is a powerful exploration of America’s opioid epidemic, tracing it from the beginning, with the 1996 release of OxyContin, to its tragic effects on people and families in Appalachia, where Beth Macy, journalist and author, lives herself, in Roanoke, VA. Dopesick “unfolds with all the pace of a thriller,” “it may make you weep; it will almost certainly make you angry” (The Guardian). Macy is a strong reporter, but what simmers under the surface of Dopesick is a rage both political and personal, as Macy writes about her own community. “Macy’s strengths as a reporter are on full display when she talks to people, gaining the trust of chastened users, grieving families, exhausted medical workers and even a convicted heroin dealer” (NYT Book Review). In 2021, the book was adapted into a Hulu mini-series.
NYT Bestseller • 2018 LA Times Book Prize for Science & Technology • Shortlisted for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Michael W. Clune, White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin (2013)Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
White Out is a memoir by Michael W. Clune—writer, critic and humanities professor—about his own heroin addiction and recovery. It seems impossible to apply a taxonomical word like “memoir” to this book; It “reads like a lost modernist novel,” “the ostensible subject [addiction] serving as pretext for the play of language and the careful chiseling of a bruised, ironic, complexly self-despising sensibility” (The Millions, The Nation). Somehow Clune’s recount is lyrical, dark, funny, “honest and dangerous.” The title refers to how heroin creates a hole in your memory, “a white out,” such that every time you use it is the first time. “The unusual risk taken by Clune’s unusually good addiction memoir is its enduring lyrical reverence for heroin” (The New Yorker); “It is a recovery narrative, but there is no redemption arc” (The Nation). It’s no question that Clune’s White Out, within the canon of addiction literature, is entirely new.

Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (2021)
From investigative journalist, staff writer at the New Yorker, and author of bestselling and award-winning Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain tells the history of the family behind Purdue Pharma, painting “a devastating portrait of a family consumed by greed and unwilling to take the slightest responsibility or show the least sympathy for what it wrought” that is “all the more damning for its stark lucidity” (NYT). Empire of Pain is the history of the perpetrators, the Sackler Family.
NYT Bestseller • Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 

Jade Sharma, Problems (2016)
The late Jade Sharma’s debut novel, Problems, “is written so well that the relentless and destructive rhythm of heroin abuse seems calming, metaphysical, and occasionally even funny” (Kirkus). Sharma’s narrator Maya has “a voice that is equal parts irreverent and hilarious, depressive and hopeful” (Bustle). Problems “takes every tired trope about addiction and recovery, ‘likeable’ characters, and redemption narratives, and blows them to pieces.” In his review of Nico Walker’s Cherry, Christian Lorentzen calls Jade Sharma’s Problems “a meticulous narrative of opioid addiction, one of the most detailed account I’ve seen in American lit” (Vulture).

Barry Meier, Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic (2018)
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Barry Meier first exposed the roots of the opioid epidemic in 2003. “This is the book that started it all. Barry Meier is a heroic reporter and Pain Killer is a muckraking classic” (Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain). This updated 2018  version of Meier’s original 2003 book breaks even newer ground, built now on a decades-long investigation. “Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.”

Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead (2022)
Demon Copperhead is Barbara Kingsolver’s retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. Instead of the institutional poverty of Victorian England, it is Appalachia, where Kingsolver is from, at the beginning of the opioid epidemic. In fact, she got the idea for the book sitting at the very desk where Dickens wrote much of David Copperfield in England. She thought about how she and Dickens were in the same boat, wanting to tell their own story–though it was a story people might not want to hear. Kingsolver claims that Dickens spoke to her, saying: “Let the kid tell the story. No one doubts the child” (NYT). And so she did. The book tells the story of Demon Copperhead’s life in his own “wise, unwavering voice,” (Pulitzer Prize) Demon’s narration is “one of the great virtuosic vocal performances” (Richard Powers, author of The Overstory). “Demon is a voice for the ages—akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield—only even more resilient” (Beth Macy, author of Dopesick).
Winner of 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction • NYT Bestseller • Winner of Women’s Prize for Fiction

Eric Eyre, Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic (2020)
In 2017, Eric Eyre’s investigation into massive shipments of opioids to West Virginia’s southern coalfields was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. It made Charleston Gazette-Mail the smallest newspaper ever to win for investigative reporting. The book details the fallout of breaking that story for the newspaper. Eyre takes his reporting expertise to uncover how and why “pharmacies in West Virginia filled more prescriptions per capita than any other state”; “he organizes his book as a simmering thriller, in which villain after villain is introduced,” “there are lawsuits and court fights,” “skulduggery and a mysterious manila envelope” (NYT). And—this crisis’ trademark—“unexpungeable grief.”
A New York Times Critics’ Top Ten Book of the Year • 2021 Edgar Award Winner Best Fact Crime • A Lit Hub Best Book of The Year

New book California Catastrophes challenges coastal communities to confront reality

It’s no secret that Californians live with the reality of earthquakes, landslides, wildfires, and other natural disasters. This confronts those who choose to stay, and the many who move here, with the equally ominous question: What can we do about it?UC Santa Cruz Professor Gary Griggs attempts to answer that question in his new book, California Catastrophes: The Natural Disaster History of the Golden State, which provides a comprehensive account of the state’s many natural disasters and how it has affected its residents throughout history. But then, it goes on to explain how Californians can better prepare going forward—and in the final chapter, Griggs issues a call to action and challenges readers to envision a safer, more equitable, and sustainable future.
Griggs, a distinguished professor of Earth and planetary sciences, is frequently quoted in news coverage of coastal crises—like highway closures from landslides and even the changing climate behind them—because of his decades of expertise on coastal geology and oceanography.
He has written or co-authored 14 books on the topic, including one on natural disasters in the Monterey Bay region. Many of us may not want to hear what he has to say now. But often, the things we choose not to acknowledge or accept are exactly what we must pay attention to most. 
People come from all over to live in or visit California and bask in its amazing weather and natural beauty. How do we continue to accommodate all the communities and activities on the coast when it’s gradually eroding?
Something’s going to have to give. This is what I call the “challenge at the edge”— sea level rise, extreme events on the California coast. 
We now know the climate across the Pacific and coastal California changes over several decades. We’ve named those “Pacific Decadal Oscillations.” The mid-1940s until 1978 was a calm, cool, not very threatening period, and that’s exactly when California’s population exploded. We built in places that looked safe at the time. And then in 1978, it flipped back to a stormier El Niño-dominated time. Now, we’re oscillating back and forth now between those two patterns. 
We really don’t have too many choices. I will say boldly, over the long run, there’s absolutely nothing we can do to hold back the Pacific Ocean. We can build walls for a while, but it’s not going to stop it. And we know now sea levels are rising at an accelerated rate. The warmer the Earth gets, the more ice melts. If we were to melt all the rest of the ice on the planet, we have the potential to raise sea level 216 feet. Along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts we can get storm surges of water washing up 10 to 15 feet high. 
So, can we continue development and deal with these hazards? I’d say there’s a lot of places that just aren’t going to be stable or safe over the long run. 
Our primary response when homes and highways are destroyed by natural disasters has been to rebuild. But as you’ve said, these are short-term solutions. Do we need to re-examine our policies or personal choices for longer-term solutions?
FEMA’s (Federal Emergency Management Agency) guideline is: You have to build back in the same place. That’s ludicrous.
There’ll be places we should try to hold on to as long as we can. But there’s a term for what we need to do: “managed retreat.” Some people call it stepping back gracefully or moving inland. But basically, if you look out 10 or 20 or 30 years, depending on the area, we can’t hold that line any longer. The people who own those houses don’t want to talk about it. But it’s happening. 
I will say it’s either going to be a managed retreat or unmanaged retreat. A number of cities and counties are thinking about managed retreat, but it’s still not required yet. In the long run, that’s going to be our only solution.
The real dilemma is sea-level rise. Sea-level rise may be the biggest challenge human civilization has ever had to face. We’ve never had sea-level rise until the present pace of development. COVID will eventually go away. So will Trump. But sea-level rise isn’t. We’re going to have to deal with this. 
People in lower-income communities bear the brunt of these natural disasters. This book ultimately challenges readers to “envision a safer, more equitable, and sustainable future.” What does all that mean?
Right now, things are not equitable. There are places that are safe and not so safe. For example, the town of Pajaro got flooded for weeks and months. And finally, after years, we’re beginning to build levees on the Pajaro River to protect them. But it’s taken forever. I think it’s just because it hasn’t been the squeaky wheel. Low-income, disadvantaged people often end up in these places that aren’t particularly safe. 
So how do we deal with that? I think a starting point is better policies. Kamala Harris is coming out with a plan to provide $25,000 in down payments for low-income people to buy their first house. She’s also proposing raising the taxes on people who make millions of dollars a year. Is this equitable for people like Jeff Bezos and some of these billionaires—do they need two hundred billion dollars? No. Are they paying their fair share? Probably not. So, I think one way is to change the whole tax code.
We also have to make sure low-income people are represented in our government structure. Normally, they’re working two jobs and trying to raise their kids. They don’t have time to sit on the planning commission. We’ve got to have other people looking after them to make those decisions.
That’s my view. It certainly isn’t going to happen instantly, but at least right now we have two different candidates with very different views about it that could make things better or could make things worse for low-income people.
California Catastrophes is a book with a pretty bleak title full of topics many would rather not think about. But it ends with a call to action that seeks to inspire hope. What’s the biggest lesson you want readers to take away?
Certainly, some things are going to get worse. I think we need to be aware of these things before we invest our life savings in something that’s not safe. 
I want to give people some perspective. If I asked you: what is your biggest fear? Some people might say: a shark, or a tsunami, or an earthquake. Those are minor risks compared to, say, riding a bike and texting.
There are these things in our everyday life we have to be careful of, but we have more power than we think. California is the fifth largest economy in the world and the center of many important industries. We also have more geologic hazards per square mile than any other state. So we have this sort of trade-off. It’s paradise, but paradise at some peril. 
The big message is there’s safe places to build; yes, there’s many things to worry about, but we can also make wise decisions about where we build and what we do.