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"Impossible to put down. It haunts me still.” -Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir
A riveting, deeply personal exploration of the opioid crisis-an empathic memoir infused with hints of true crime.
In November 2013, Rose Andersen's younger sister Sarah died of an overdose in the bathroom of her boyfriend's home in a small town with one of the highest rates of opioid use in the state. Like too many of her generation, she had become addicted to heroin. Sarah was 24 years old.
To imagine her way into Sarah's life, Rose revisits their volatile childhood, marked by their stepfather's omnipresent rage and their father's pathological lying. As the dysfunction comes into focus, so does a broader picture of the opioid crisis and the drug rehabilitation industry in small towns across America. And when Rose learns from the coroner that Sarah's cause of death was a methamphetamine overdose, the story takes a wildly unexpected turn.
As Andersen sifts through her sister's last days, we come to recognize the contours of grief and its aftermath: the psychic shattering which can turn to anger, the pursuit of an ever-elusive verdict, and the intensely personal rites of imagination and art needed to actually move on.
Reminiscent of Alex Marzano-Lesnevich's The Fact of a Body, Maggie Nelson's Jane: A Murder, and Lacy M. Johnson's The Other Side, Andersen's debut is a potent, profoundly original journey into and out of loss.
Published | 07 Jul 2020 |
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Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 224 |
ISBN | 9781635575156 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Illustrations | Black and white photographs throughout |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Visceral . . . Part story of America's opioid crisis, part grief memoir, and part tale of a possible murder, Andersen's deeply personal book roils with anger and empathy that, at its very heart, is a lament for the profound hole left in the wake of a sister's tragic death.
The Daily Beast, “Best Summer Reads”
Not since Leah Carroll's Down City have I come across a true crime memoir with such beautiful, spare, and moving prose.
CrimeReads, “July's Best Crime Nonfiction”
I picked up The Heart and Other Monsters because of the resonance of its subject matter in my own life-I lost a cousin to an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2018, and an aunt to an accidental OxyContin overdose in 2019. What I didn't know in choosing THAOM was how it would move me to act . . . I have Andersen's harrowing, beautiful memoir to thank.
Vol 1. Brooklyn
Combining the agonizing emotional intensity typical of narratives about losing a sibling with the memoiristic style of a murder investigation successfully complicates the reading experience. A literary grief memoir combined with a skillfully unfolded murder mystery.
Kirkus (starred review)
A riveting and raw story . . . This tragic tale of addiction will resonate deeply with readers.
Publishers Weekly
Poignant . . . The Heart and Other Monsters is a biography, cautionary tale and murder mystery, masterfully blended with a memoir burdened by grief and guilt for crimes committed by others.
Shelf Awareness
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