Vendor
	Foundry Claire Harris
Original language
English
Categories
Politics & government

DOPESICK

Beth Macy

Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.

Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death.

Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus.

Soon to be a major TV event.

Beth Macy is the New York Times Bestselling author of FACTORY MAN (Little, Brown, 2014) and TRUEVINE (Little, Brown, 2016). For over three decades, Macy was an award-winning writer for The Roanoke Times and contributed to many other publications, including The New York Times Sunday Book Review and the Christian Science Monitor. She has also won numerous journalism awards, including the Nieman Fellowship for Journalism and the Lukas Work-In-Progress Award. Beth Macy currently lives in Roanoke, Virginia with her family.

Available products
Book Published 2018-08-07 by Little, Brown
Book Published 2018-08-07 by Little, Brown

Comments

Beth Macy writes about our opioid epidemic but Dopesick is not about the drugs. It's a book about kids and moms and neighbors and the people who try to save them. It's about shame and stigma and desperation. It's about bad policy, greed and corruption. It's a Greek tragedy with a chorus of teenage ghosts who know how to text but can't express how they feel.

Dopesick will make you shudder with rage and weep with sympathy. Beth Macy's empathy and fearless reporting reaches beyond the headlines to tell the stories of how real people have been left to cope with the fallout of corporate greed, and the willful blindnesses of businesses and the government. Macy again shows why she's one of America's best non-fiction writers.

An urgent, eye-opening look at a problem that promises to grow much worse in the face of inaction and indifference.

I'm still in withdrawal from Dopesick, a harrowing journey through the history and contemporary hell-scape of drug addiction. Beth Macy brings a big heart, a sharp eye, and a powerful sense of place to the story of ordinary Americans in the grip of an extraordinary crisis.

...When Macy wrote about the disastrous effects of globalization on the American furniture industry in Factory Man (2014) and about the poisonous racism of the Jim Crow South in Truevine (2016), her prose had the punch of that of a veteran journalist who knows how to lay out economic, political, and social issues. (She won numerous awards for her work during her more than two decades with the Roanoke Times in Virginia.) She does the same sort of big-picture reporting in Dopesick, which features a blistering account of the fraudulent marketing of OxyContin by Purdue Pharma...

The only book to fully chart the devastating opioid crisis in America: An unforgettable portrait of the families and first responders on the front lines, from a New York Times bestselling author and journalist who has lived through it.... masterful work...Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus.... Read more...

All prior books on this topic, including my own, were written as if describing the trunk, the ear, or the tail, without quite capturing the whole elephant. Journalist Beth Macy has packed the entire elephant and then some into one book. Her writing jumps from the page with a fast-paced narrative, colorful and inspiring characters, vivid historical detail, and a profound sense of place.

TRUEVINE is being developed by Paramount for a major film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The latest news is that the fantastic screenwriter Charles Murray has been attached. Read more...

DOPESICK was included on Janet Maslin's New York Times roundup of 17 Refreshing Books to Read this summer with the following praise: "So doesDopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America,Beth Macy's timely investigative report into the story of OxyContin. Macy, the author of "Factory Man," is known for her familiarity with Appalachia and her serious reporting skills. She brings both to bear on this detailed account of how the drug was created, aggressively marketed to doctors, readily prescribed and then enabled to spread through all economic strata of society. We've seen a lot of generalities about opioid addiction, but Macy follows one specific drug through the range of problems it has caused, the people it has hurt, the difficulties in fighting it (with plenty of too little, too late) and the glimmers of hope that remain." Read more...

Macy's forceful and comprehensive overview makes clear the scale and complexity of America's opioid crisis.

Dopesick is another deep - and deeply needed - look into the troubled soul of America.

Hers is a crucial and many-faceted look at a still-unfolding national crisis, making this a timely and necessary read.