It hurts to read this book.

Before you overdose, opioids kill you one day at a time. In 2013, at age 83, my mother had a hip replacement. It hurt. She saw a locum in the small Canadian town where she lived. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you can take as much as you want, you won’t get addicted.” Anyone who is reading this book knows what happens next.

You can’t recover, or the supply dries up. So you manage to keep getting sicker. One cane became two. Two canes became a walker. The walker became a wheelchair. Terrible, terrible pain, can’t get out of bed anymore. The path to the nursing home strewn with lies, cruelty, recklessness, despair. While her overdoses were not fatal, opioids ruined her, and they tore our family apart. My mom died in 2017, still trying to figure out how to get “something stronger.”

The book resonated with me because it located our experience on the continuum of pain and death created by the Sackler Empire. So much suffering and loss is still happening two decades after the you-can’t-get-addicted lie was exposed. I read the book, and I wept.

Today is Mother’s Day.

5 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

One of the best Expose stories I ever read

This is a story of a Pharma scandal (OxyContin) that I knew a little from the recent press coverage of the family’s settlement in court.

Patrick Keefe brings this scandal to life by tracing the Sackler’s family history and the progression of their pursuits as drug manufacturers.

The wealth of data presented in this book, its insightful analysis and beautifully written prose is what makes the book such a delight to read, despite the tragedy associated with the OxyContin scandal.

Most importantly this is a book that is probably best enjoyed in its audio, rather than written version. That is because Patrick does a superb interpretative job of reading it.

Don’t get discouraged by the book’s length. You will be satisfied from beginning to the very end.

2 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Great, objective overview of the path of Purdue

Well written, extremely well researched and thorough. Provides a comprehensive insight into how the Sackler family came into their wealth, and more broadly highlights some of the issues around pharmaceutical marketing and general corruption of the government agencies responsible.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Amazing book

This book read like a mystery novel, there were so many twists and turns. It was so well documented and researched. I had listened to a podcast called “the Wind of Change” by Patrick Radden Keene and so enjoyed how he narrated and researched this podcast that when I saw he had written Empire of Pain I immediately bought it on Audible.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Fascinating, frightening and essential listening!

Ever since reading an article in the Guardian a number of years ago on the Sackler family, I have been both fascinated and disgusted and the complete disregard that this family had for life. Their horrific arrogance to use the blood money they received from all the victims of OxyContin for their philanthropy and an addiction of their own to slap their name on any building they saw fit is beyond comprehension.
There are countless books/articles/videos on the devastation of OxyContin…but no book has ever dived as deep into the lengths that this family has gone to give a false narrative of exactly what their intentions were from the very beginning.
The narrator manages to keep you hooked and interested throughout, not an easy feat for such a long book!

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Wow!

An incredible feat of investigative journalism detailing the rise and fall of the Sackler family, who developed, marketed and sold OxyContin with a full understanding of its addictive nature and its contribution to the opioid crisis. Whatever you think you know, there's more. The author is a great narrator, too. Excellent.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

I predict major awards for this one! Unforgettable

Every once in a while, I listen to work of narrative non-fiction so extraordinary, so outrageous, and so heartbreaking that I’m reminded that truth is stranger than fiction. Empire of Pain is all those things. If you listen to this audiobook, prepare to feel angry. Even outraged. Listen to my complete review on the Audiobook Reviews in Five Minutes podcast

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Remarkable

This seems to be one of the great, revealing works of our time. I am deeply impressed by Keefe’s research and writing style that kept me enthralled throughout.
Greed, by the wealthy, has been a topic I’ve been curious about for many years. This book brings the opportunity to see how the blind greediness of the Sackler family originated in the disturbing brilliance of Arthur Sackler to the blatant horror of the latter generations.
The legal and governing system’s corrupt associations with the wealthy is on full display.
May mercy be extended to the USA because you live in a warped and cruel form of capitalism.
Bravo to Keefe! You did incredible work.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

My first review in 4 years on audible...

Because this is a masterpiece! Outstanding in every way. I knew nothing about the sacklers, or the opioid crisis and was unsure if I would be interested enough to listen to such a long book. But WOW, once it finished I wanted listen to it again! The story, the narration, the way Patrick put it all together... just spectacular.

“Shame on Sackler” now and forever.

The story of the elusive Sackler family is not just the story of the origins of the opioid crisis, but the story of capitalism’s impact on public health, private medical practice, the pharmaceutical industry, and politics. The Sackler legacy is more than opioids, its Thorazine, Valium, the birth of commercialized medical marketing, incredible arrogance, ignorance, and apathy.

This is book is a must read. Its hard to think that cataloging and scrutinizing the legacy of one family could broach so many subjects, be so riveting, and enraging, but Keefe is a phenomenal writer and tackles the immensity of the Sacklers with accessible prose and integrity.

You will likely hate the Sacklers by the end of this book, not because this is an emotional hate piece, or hit piece, or biased beyond 2021’s understanding of the impact of the Sacklers and oxycontin. You will hate the Sacklers because their own actions, words, and attitudes speak for themselves.

I can’t put it any better than the blurb at the back of the book:

“Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes.”

This book speaks to more than the Sacklers, but to the realities of our world that created then, elevated them, and were complicit with them. This is essential reading not just about the opioid crisis and its origins, but about the devastating impact of unchecked greed and power.

“Shame on Sackler” now and forever.