#Empire of Pain

[lem0nademouth]

my toxic trait is that i cannot give a simple answer to the question “what is your favorite book?”. do you mean book i enjoyed reading the most? book i have the fondest memories of? book i connected the most with? are we including childhood favorites? differentiating by genre? separating fiction and nonfiction? do not ask me what my favorite book is unless you have at least two hours to spare.

[beauty-is-terrror]

maybe i just need a big book

[richardarmitagefanpage]

Amazon

[apesoformythoughts]

We have often sneered at the superstition and cowardice of the mediaeval barons who thought that giving lands to the Church would wipe out the memory of their raids or robberies; but modern capitalists seem to have exactly the same notion; with this not unimportant addition, that in the case of the capitalists the memory of the robberies is really wiped out.

— G.K. Chesterton

[bringbackthepornbots]

library is begging me to please, please return my overdue books but i know full well no one else in this city is hungry to read any six-hundred page doorstop about the opiod epidemic nor also Cranford, so i'm not in a goddamn hurry, alright

[realkaijuhavecurves]

Halfway through Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe and what the fuck. Jesus fucking Christ. What in the goddamn fucking hell. What in the actual fuck.

[quoteablebooks]

Genre: Non-Fiction, Adult, True-Crime

Rating: 5 out of 5

Content Warning: Drug abuse, Addiction, Drug use, Suicide, Death, Antisemitism

Summary:

The highly anticipated portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing.

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions: Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis.

Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.

*Opinions*

As I always start when I am reviewing a non-fiction book, I can’t really talk about the topic that the author is covering because I haven’t spent years of my life researching it like they have. Also, non-fiction books, just like documentaries, provide the reader with facts, but that doesn’t mean those facts aren’t presented in a way to make people lean toward the same viewpoint as the author. All that being said, Patrick Radden Keefe did not have to do much to convince me that I hate all these people and wish them ill. In fact, if you have been following my updates it will be no surprise that the Tiktok sound of “why don’t we just kill these fucking people” played in my head a couple of times.

Empire of Pain chronicles three generations of the Sackler family and their rise from three brothers with MDs to billionaires who produced and peddled Oxycontin until the evidence against them was far too damning to continue. I vaguely remember this trail in the news cycle during 2020, but I also was attempting to avoid all news possible as someone who worked in a hospital, so I didn’t follow it with much interest. More rich people getting a slap on the wrist for doing something unimaginable, that really isn’t anything new. In fact, the actual business aspect of this novel was the least interesting for me. I am American, I am well aware that the country is five corporations and the NRA in a trench coat, so all the sleazy business practices were a given, though Keefe presented them in an easy to digest light. That didn’t mean that when I read about them paying the FDA, physicians, and lobbied in Washington to keep their names and the serious risks of the drugs away from the public didn’t surprise me. It’s a given that money talks, but it especially does in America. What I didn’t expect was how much I would hate the actual members of the family, especially the original three brothers. 

While the Arthur Sackler branch of the family attempted to distance themselves from the Mortimer and Raymond branch when the bad press and their immoral dealings came to light, I found him probably the most detestable of the family. While Richard was horrible in his own right, he was born wealthy and so I almost expected him to think that he was God's gift to the world and refuse to take responsibility for what he believed was his gift to the world, oxycontin. Arthur, and his brothers, came from humble beginnings and lived through the Depression, which makes his absolute narcissism more shocking to me. I would figure that men who grew up around all that misery, they would have some compassion, but money is the best corrupter that has been invented. Arthur collected art and wives as if that was his profession, which was surprising given all the other professions the man had. It was comical that he thought that advertising to physicians was fine because they ‘wouldn’t be swayed by an ad’. He set up the framework that Purdue Pharma used to push Oxycontin across the United States and world, but he also got a whole generation of people taking tranquilizers with the same tactics. The audacity of the man was truly on another level and the fact that these men needed to put their names on ALL their Philanthropic efforts was slightly embarrassing. True, with the Carnegies, Rockefellers, etc, it was the same, but guess what it was embarrassing for them as well. Mortimer was what you would expect from someone who came into a lot of money, traveling the world and buying houses everywhere. Raymond was the only one who seemed able to be somewhat normal and have a single wife, well as normal as someone who is evil and owns an evil corporation could be anyway. Then again, Richard is his child, so I guess he couldn’t have been that normal. 

The writing of this book was very accessible and wanted to keep me reading, even through the anger and frustration. I had read Say Nothing by Keefe, which had the same readable quality, and that book was part of the reason I picked this one up. I really didn’t have much of an interest in the Sacklers or the opioid epidemic, aside from how I encountered it at my job, but I had heard good things and I couldn’t put Say Nothing down, so I bought this. I am so glad that I did because even though this infuriated me, Keefe made sure that the voices of ‘normal’ people, individuals who attempted to raise concerns, people who became addicted, and those who advocated against the Sacklers were also heard. Nan Goldin had me internally cheering as she staged demonstrations at art galleries to pull the Sacklers out of obscurity and into the light of how they had gotten their billions of dollars. While it is frustrating that none of these people who lied, knew the risks, and still pushed their drugs will ever see jail, I am glad that the name that they were so insistent on being placed on everything had been removed again and again. May their deaths be painful and let them all die in obscurity. 

Was this review anything except me screaming about these people? Not really. So,.let me try again. I think this is a fascinating read that pulls the curtain back not only on how one company led to an epidemic that we are still attempting to crawl out from underneath, but the family that tried so hard to hide in the shadows while it all happened. As Keefe states, they are hardly the only evil corporation or the only one selling opioids, but in regards to opioids, they were the first, the most aggressive, and if they weren’t the most irresponsible I would be shocked to learn who was. Keefe gives a look at the American legal system and what a joke that is if you have enough money, the few stalwart individuals who tried to do the right thing, and that at the end of the day you might not be able to take their money or reputation. If you don’t usually read non-fiction, I don’t think it is the first one I would point you to, but it was an engaging and fascinating read. 5 stars. 

[offtheleashtravel]

The Best Books I Read in 2023

From Nazi occupied France to Puerto Rican occupied Brooklyn. #books #bookreviews

The Postcard, Anne Berest It’s 2003 when an anonymous postcard arrives in the mailbox of a French family. On it are simply four first names. They are the names of a mother, father and two of their children. All died at Auschwitz in 1942. The postcard is the launching point for two stories. The first is the story of the Rabinovitch family. Refugees from Russia, they make stops in Latvia, Poland…

[offtheleashart]

The Best Books I Read in 2023

From Nazi occupied France to Puerto Rican occupied Brooklyn. #books #bookreviews

The Postcard, Anne Berest It’s 2003 when an anonymous postcard arrives in the mailbox of a French family. On it are simply four first names. They are the names of a mother, father and two of their children. All died at Auschwitz in 1942. The postcard is the launching point for two stories. The first is the story of the Rabinovitch family. Refugees from Russia, they make stops in Latvia, Poland…

[thatwritererinoriordan]

Currently reading.

[lem0nademouth]

hey uh opioids aren’t the problem. a lot of other things - corporate greed, lack of access to preventative healthcare, poverty, policing, the criminalization of prescription medication & cannabis, ableism, racism, lack of access to abortions and contraceptives - all of those and more are the problem. opioids are life saving medications. “alternative pain management” rarely works. but it’s so much easier to blame a drug than it is to accept the blame yourself.

[ruubesz-draws]

Godzilla and Kong's teamwork in a nutshell

No wonder they always fight...

Inspired by this video:

[dirtytransmasc]

I'll never not believe that Davos is the one who fell first and harder. that he wasn't the one getting his heart truly broken. the one fighting for Aaron's love and attention and aching when he is denied. the one longing for Aeron and having to reckon with the fact that he can never truly have him, there's too much keeping them apart.

sure, Aeron has his own feelings, his own longing, his dread.

but you can see it in their faces, it's Davos's heart that's a mess, his soul that is aching, while Aeron is more confused and unsure of his own feelings and where they lie in the mess that is feuds and war and blood and kin.

Davos is angry but full of bitter, rage filled acceptance. Aeron is scared, confused, and stuck between acceptance and denial. and it's breaking me.

[apesoformythoughts]

The Sackler name has adorned the walls of many storied institutions—Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller, OxyContin, that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis.

Empire of Pain is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d'Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush dissent. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting—a grand, devastating portrait of the excesses of America's second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite, and an investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world's great fortunes.

[literallygwenandjinx]

im literally sobbing my girls finally got a happy ending (and had sesbian lex)

[dzasta15]

Masterpost of all my de embroidery!

I did these over the last few years for gifts and commissions!

(Empathy and Pain Threshold are for sale! DM for details!)

Bonus: