About the Book
Author Jack Shuler is a truly remarkable social historian, one who has turned his finely tuned attention to previous topics including a history of the noose, the Stono Slave rebellion in the British colony of South Carolina, and the lives of contemporary Americans in Appalachia. In THIS IS OHIO, Shuler investigates his own home and its place as a quintessential examples of the roads into--and perhaps out of--the Opioid Crisis.
Sam Quinones's Dreamland and Beth Macy's Dopesick focus solely on Big Pharma and its relationship to the opioid crisis. Shuler's book is the next part of that story and will examine this issue as a human rights problem, fostered by poverty, inadequate healthcare, criminalization and stigmatization of addicts at the expense of robust, holistic rehabilitation. He also looks at how grassroots organizing -- often led by former addicts and former homeless individuals using data informed by a burgeoning understanding of communal/community trauma-- is empowering communities.
This book and its topic are urgently needed, both in the build-up to the 2020 US election and also for the work to be done when the election news-cycle finally quiets down. In 2016, not enough attention was paid to post-industrial towns whose populations live on the margins--and Trump's election surprised the media and many others. Shuler's THIS IS OHIO puts a human face on and names the human cost of the crisis
In October 2019, three major drug distributors and an opioid manufacturer (McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, which distribute about 90 percent of all the medicines to pharmacies, hospitals and clinics in the United States) reached a $260 million settlement with just two Ohio counties to avoid the first landmark federal opioid trial that was just days away from beginning
Ohio could thus become a model for settlement of thousands of similar cases brought in an attempt to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for an epidemic of addiction that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans
This is a book that will speak also to organizers, nonprofit leaders/staff/volunteers, as well as to politically engaged voters who perhaps don't think about the crisis in these terms or who perhaps see overdoses as separate issues from the ones they're working on. Shuler wants to make the important connections to bring together the people working on issues of homelessness, poverty, access to health care, police violence, first responder trauma, gentrification, and to draw a throughline between all of these struggles straight to the opioid crisis and its possible solutions
The book is stark and unflinching, but also personal, intimately and respectfully reported, and ultimately hopeful. Because as Shuler notes, this crisis is more than just policy failure, it is a failure of imagination. And yet, there are people imagining other possible worlds, doing the work to address this crisis. These people are often presenting common-place solutions that are being undermined by infuriatingly political, partisan reasons
Author lives in small-town Ohio near Columbus
Acquired and edited by Counterpoint EIC Dan Smetanka
About the Author :
JACK SHULER is the author of three books, including The Thirteenth Turn: A History of the Noose. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, Pacific Standard, Christian Science Monitor, 100 Days in Appalachia, and Los Angeles Times, among other publications. He is chair of the narrative journalism program at Denison University. He lives in Ohio. Find out more at jackshulerauthor.com.
Review :
With the opioid epidemic raging rampant in Ohio, Shuler gets into the nitty-gritty of the crisis . . . An insightful look at how issues in Ohio affect the rest of the country. --Laura Hanrahan, Cosmopolitan, A Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
A book that sets itself apart from the pack with a focus on both harm reduction and the larger economic factors that Shuler argues comprise crucial yet oft-overlooked context . . . Shuler holds readers' interest with a colorful cast of activists who are on the ground in Ohio today, pushing back against the fentanyl-driven overdose crisis and the wider drug war . . . In the sort of middle-America town where news reports too often only focus on the bodies, Shuler has found a gang of heroes who have taken matters into their own hands. --Travis Lupick, Filter Magazine
Jack Shuler's new book reveals courageous men and women combating the overdose crisis in Newark, Ohio, and makes a case for progressive harm reduction policies . . . This is Ohio isn't a depressing book. It's a portrait of men and women who, instead of waiting for seats at the table, made their own tables and pulled up their own chairs and began working for change. --Joel Oliphint, Columbus Alive
This impressively researched and deeply felt account does a devastating job of personalizing the failures of U.S. drug policy. --Publishers Weekly
Another alarming report from the front lines of the opioid epidemic . . . This book should be shelved next to Beth Macy's Dopesick and Sam Quinones' Dreamland . . . Full of grim yet important statistics and vignettes as well as a few sensible solutions.--Kirkus Reviews
[A] profoundly humanizing investigation . . . The commitment, tenacity, and empathy of the users, activists, and advocates Shuler meets is a stark corrective to the disdain and dehumanization typical of policy and practice in this area. The title forcefully claims this story for Ohio, a statistical center, but addiction reaches all places, and this book is strongly recommended for readers anywhere who are interested in systemic change and the power of the grassroots. --Library Journal
"Jack Shuler takes us to the heart of America's overdose crisis with clear-eyed storytelling and empathic warmth for the ordinary Americans fighting against the economic and cultural abandonment that have left too many behind, or locked up. A wrenching but life-affirming book." --Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black
"A riveting and disturbing look at America, but altogether necessary. This is a much-needed examination of a crisis and decline that has gone on far too long without reckoning. An absolute must-read." --Jared Yates Sexton, author of American Rule
"This Is Ohio is such a good book because Jack Shuler listens so well. With clarity and heart, he tells an empowering story about the nation's overdose crisis in the voices of the women and men who are facing it head-on. These are voices calling not just for attention but for action, and they are offering solutions that come from hard-won experience. Shuler asks us to listen, just as he did. It's the least we can do." --Peter Slevin, author of Michelle Obama: A Life
Careful. Vivid. Empathic. Jack Shuler's This Is Ohio will challenge many readers' assumptions about addiction, poverty, and the overdose crisis in not just Ohio, but across America. Much ink has been spilled investigating Big Pharma and how their greed sparked an epidemic of addiction. But This Is Ohio makes the uncomfortable argument that the crisis facing communities has roots that run far deeper than one industry's wanton greed and corruption. Shuler's book shows that addressing the opioid crisis also means addressing the economy, health care, inequality, and stigma. It means restoring the meaning of community and strengthening social bonds that not only keep us alive, but make our lives worth living." --Zachary Siegel, journalist and co-host of Narcotica
