October Not Fiction Book Discussions

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, one of the most read and discussed books of the year, asks us to consider what it means to be educated.

Born to a family of Mormons who embrace a survivalist worldview and distrust, among other things, public schools, Westover had little formal education of any kind as a child. She worked for her mother's herbal supplement and midwifing businesses and her father's scrapping business until a brother who had left home for college encouraged her to study for the ACT. Westover passed and was accepted to Brigham Young University at the age of 16. Westover performed brilliantly academically, and ultimately earned graduate degrees from Cambridge and a fellowship at Harvard. Yet Westover's steepest learning curve was less academic than social, cultural, and emotional as she outgrew her family's world on Buck's Peak in rural Idaho.

What do you think? Have you ever outgrown a world or worldview? What sparked that learning curve? Did you have to make difficult choices? In pursuit of her academic and personal education, Westover endured active opposition from her father, demeaning abuse from her brother, mixed messages from her mother, a limiting view of women's place in the world from her religion, and, initially, suffered from limited cultural intelligence. Why do you think she was able to persevere? What personal qualities contributed to her success? Ironically, did those same qualities also limit her in some ways? Crucial to most people's education are the mentors and guides we meet along the way. Who do you think was important to Westover's education? In addition to books and lectures, we also learn from experiences. Which life experiences had the most impact on Westover? At Cambridge, Westover attends a lecture about Isaiah Berlin's concept of negative versus positive liberty, a concept reiterated to her in the lyrics of a Bob Marley song. How did these two very different texts help Westover to understand her education? Westover wrote her memoir at a relatively young age, close in time and emotion to the experiences depicted. Why do you think she chose to write it at this time of her life? Do you think it would differ if she wrote it at a later point in her life? How?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, October 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, October 17, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed September's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and The Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy, then you might also enjoy these books recommended by Macy:

• In Pain: A Bioethicist's Personal Struggle with Opioids by Travis N. Rieder
• Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It's So Hard to Stop by Anna Lembke, MD
• The Big Fix: Hope After Heroin by Tracey Helton Mitchell
• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
• If You Love Me: A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Opioid Addiction by Maureen Cavanagh
• American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts by Chris McGreal
• Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander
• What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte
• Trampoline and Weedeater, illustrated novels by Robert Gipe
• Ohio, a novel by Stephen Markley
• Cherry, a novel by Nico Walker
• I Know Your Kind, poems by William Brewer

Macy's follow-up to Dopesick:

• Audible Original Finding Tess:A Mother's Search for Answers in a Dopesick America

And these articles and videos suggested by our discussion group members:

• Wall Street Journal article Schism in the House of Sackler by Jared S. Hopkins July 13, 2019 print edition
• Opioids and Opioids II segments from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, available on YouTube

September Not Fiction Book Discussions

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy is a perfect example of how narrative nonfiction can help us to better understand current events by providing the in-depth stories necessary for us to identify with the people behind the headlines.

Just this week, Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in an effort to shield itself and its owners, the Sackler family, one of the richest families in America, from over 2,600 federal and state lawsuits concerning their role in America's opioid addiction epidemic. It is estimated that at its peak, over 100 people died every day of opioid drug overdoses, and Macy describes the devastating effects of addiction on these individuals, their families, and their communities. In fact, Beth Macy's clear-eyed and compassionate reporting may be in part responsible for a growing awareness of the extent and causes of the crisis. Although it is a sobering, infuriating, and heartbreaking read, Dopesick is also inspiring because Macy profiles individuals who have devoted their lives to raising awareness about and combating the epidemic, and she provides an overview of the different treatment protocols and of different models of community response.

What do you think? Before reading Dopesick, were you aware of the extent to which the opioid addiction epidemic had spread in America? Do you know someone actively experiencing or recovering from addiction? How does Dopesick help you to understand what they and their families are going through? To what degree do you think Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and other pharmaceutical companies should be held responsible for the opioid addiction epidemic? To what degree should the Sackler family be held responsible? Within the addiction treatment community, there are two very different approaches to treatment, abstinence and medicine-assisted therapy, and, in general, effective and affordable treatment is difficult to find. What were your thoughts about the nature of addiction and its treatment before reading Dopesick? Have they changed? What strategies--legal, medical, cultural--would you suggest? Macy profiles a large number of people touched either personally or professionally by the opioid addiction epidemic. Which stories of loss and grief, of personal and professional responsibility or irresponsibility, of self-sacrifice or greed most moved you? Why? Macy both profiles specific individuals and provides an overview of the crisis. Does she manage to integrate both the intimate and the broad view successfully? Does Dopesick end on a note of hope or of despair? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our collective will to find solutions?

We hope you will join the discussion: Thursday, September 19 at 11:00 a.m. and here on the blog.