Creating an opioid-crisis syllabus
the true crime that's worth your time
In my inbox yesterday: 1) a note from the PR team for Alex Gibney’s upcoming doc for HBO, The Crime Of The Century, that included HBO’s official trailer;
2) a note from our esteemed contributor Susan Howard, remarking on the pleasant surprise of A Death In Mud Lick’s Best Fact Crime win at the Edgars, which neither of us had predicted; and 3) an invoice from the publishers warehouse where I get new stock for Exhibit B., letting me know that Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire Of Pain is winging its way to my shelves.
Do any and all of these belong on a prospective opioid-crisis “syllabus”? And what other properties would you add? The jury’s still out (as it were) on the Gibney as of this writing, but I would add, just for starters, last year’s Frontline episode, “Opioids Inc.”; Beth Macy’s Dopesick; and, if you want a sneak of the Radden Keefe, his 2017 piece on the Sacklers, which made me abusive towards the physical New Yorker in which I was rage-reading it.
Please add your must-reads/must-watches/must-listens in the comments! (And if you find yourself tempted to purchase some of the reading mentioned, step on over to Exhibit B. Books and use the BestEv15 discount code at checkout on any of the tomes mentioned…or any other tome that strikes your fancy! Good alllll weekend so take your time.) — SDB