EMPIRE OF PAIN – PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE

The inspiration behind the Netflix tv series Painkillers, starring Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick Winner of the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards 2021: Winner, Memoir Autobiography Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty: a parable of 21st century greed One of those authors I will always read, no matter what the subject matter, which is why I gobbled up Empire of Pain . . . a masterclass in compelling narrative nonfiction. – Elizabeth Day, The Guardian 30 Best Summer Reads If you haven’t read it already, you really should. I’ve been thinking about it nonstop ever since I finished it. – Malcolm Gladwell The gripping and shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family and their roles in the stories of Valium, Oxycontin and the opioid crisis. The Sackler family is one of the richest in the world, and their name adorns the walls of many famous institutions – Harvard; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Oxford; the Louvre. The source of the family fortune was vague, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis – an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people. In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, award-winning journalist and host of the Wind of Change podcast Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality. Shortlisted for the 2021 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award ________________________ Praise for Empire of Pain: More compelling, more character driven, and more capacious than any novel I have read this year. – Sara Collins It’s superbly written, exhaustively researched, full of fierce moral resolve, jaw-droppingly revealing, and above all propulsively readable. More than a match for any novel, and I think a future classic.