Methland
Sometimes you need a really, really depressing-yet-hopeful read of nonfiction before you can jump back into fiction, and this book was that shot in the arm for me.
The book is about the meth epidemic in America, not just in the big cities you'd hear about on major new channels, but in small towns as well, using Oelwein, Iowa as a case study.
One of the things you need when studying addiction this book has in spades, which is both the understanding that addiction can destroy lives, more than just the addicts, and that those who are addicted are likewise victims and need sympathy, both of which this book has. It starts off as just a question about why meth has invaded Small Town, USA, and gradually expands its scope over the course of the book to reveal the way corporations keep lobbying congress to maintain the system that results in meth addiction. From pharmaceutical companies preventing the DEA from tracking drugs that can be made into meth, to food industries engaging in human trafficking to acquire undocumented immigrants as cheap labor, to even corporations that may have nothing else wrong abandoning towns that rely heavily on the job opportunities. But it also manages to complicate the black-and-white nature without underselling it entirely.
I don't know of the veracity of this book, which I say because I've seen it's received some sharp criticism from an Iowan local. But as a layman, the book has a lot of typos, almost all of them separating composite words into its component parts; the town of Independence was repeatedly rendering as "In dependence", and many such similar errors occurred throughout.
Despite that, I found this eye-opening and, at times, sickening. The reinterpretation of meth as a uniquely American problem because of how much we love our efficiency was profound, and if I didn't hate capitalism already, it gave me all the more reason to do so. Take a read, but only if you're in the right headspace for it, and with a critical eye.
