UID:
kobvindex_ZLB34093592
ISBN:
9781620402511
Content:
" In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field,named Dreamland, it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America—,ddiction like no other the country has ever faced. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland . With a great reporter's narrative skill and the storytelling ability of a novelist, acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional collision has been catastrophic. The unfettered prescribing of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in Purdue Pharma's campaign to market OxyContin, its new, expensive—,xtremely addictive—,iracle painkiller. Meanwhile, a massive influx of black tar heroin—,heap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico's west coast, independent of any drug cartel—,ssaulted small town and mid-sized cities across the country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system. Together these phenomena continue to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico. Introducing a memorable cast of characters—,harma pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, and parents—,uinones shows how these tales fit together. Dreamland is a revelatory account of the corrosive threat facing America and its heartland."
Content:
Rezension(1): " Sam Quinones is a journalist, author and storyteller whose two acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction about Mexico and Mexican immigration made him, according to the SF Chronicle Book Review, the most original writer on Mexico and the border." Rezension(2): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: February 2, 2015 In this fascinating, often horrifying investigation, journalist Quinones ( True Tales from Another Mexico ) delves into the heart of America’s obsession with opiates like heroin, morphine, and OxyContin. He looks at how aggressive marketing and irresponsible business tactics led to the widespread use of addictive prescription painkillers (especially OxyContin) and how Mexican drug cartels introduced black tar heroin into small towns and vulnerable areas around the U.S. The story of the so-called Xalisco Boys, the source of so much misery and exploitation, unfolds with grim efficiency under Quinone’s scrutiny. He doesn’t hold back as he describes how widespread addiction and pill mills devastated entire communities, such as the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio. Through extensive interviews and research, Quinone gives a very human perspective to this topic, telling the tales of addicts and pushers, researchers and cops alike. While some of the threads become repetitive, this remains a harrowing, eye-opening look at two sides of the same coin, the legal and illegal faces of addictive painkillers and their insidious power. Agent: Stephany Evans, FinePrint Literary Management. " Rezension(3): "〈a href=http://www.kirkusreviews.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/kirkus_logo.png alt=Kirkus border=0 /〉〈/a〉: February 1, 2015 Discouraging, unflinching dispatches from America's enduring opiate-abuse epidemic. Veteran freelance journalist Quinones (Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration, 2007, etc.) cogently captures the essence of the festering war on drugs throughout the 1990s. He focuses on the market for black tar heroin, a cheap, potent, semiprocessed drug smuggled into the United States from Nayarit, a state on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The author charts its dissemination throughout American heartland cities like Columbus and Portsmouth, Ohio, home to a huge, family-friendly swimming pool named Dreamland, which closed in 1993, after which opiates made easy work of a landscape stripped of any communal girding. Assembling history through varying locales and personal portraits, Quinones follows a palpable trail of heartbreak, misery and the eventual demise of seemingly harmless people shape-shifted into lying, thieving slaves to an unseen molecule. The author provides an insider's glimpse into the drug trade machine, examining the evolution of medical narcotic destigmatization, the OxyContin-heroin correlation and the machinations of manipulative pharmaceutical companies. His profiles include a West Virginia father burying his overdosed son, a diabolically resourceful drug dealer dubbed the Man, and Enrique, a Mexican citizen who entered the drug trade as a dealer for his uncle at 14. Perhaps most intriguing is the author's vivid dissection of the cross-cultural heroin deal, consisting of an interconnected, hive-minded retail system of telephone operators, dealers (popularly known as the Xalisco Boys) and customers,everything is efficiently and covertly marketed like a pizza delivery service and franchised nationwide with precision. The author's text, the result of a five-year endeavor of remote research and in-person interviews, offers a sweeping vantage point of the nation's ever expanding drug problem. Though initially disjointed, these frustrating and undeniably disheartening scenarios eventually dovetail into a disturbing tapestry of abuse, addiction and death. Thankfully, for a fortunate few, rebirth is possible. A compellingly investigated, relentlessly gloomy report on the drug distribution industry. COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. " Rezension(4): "〈a href=http://lj.libraryjournal.com/ target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/libraryjournal_logo.png alt=Library Journal border=0 /〉〈/a〉: November 15, 2014 In the 1990s, pain medications were on their way to hooking millions of Americans, and black-tar heroin, a cheap and powerful form of the drug produced in Mexico independent of the drug cartels, began devastating small heartland communities throughout the country. Former Los Angeles Times reporter Quinones pairs the two phenomena as a study in addiction, the power of overwhelmingly persuasive marketing, and a huge social problem in America today. Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission. "
Note:
Auszeichnungen: The National Book Critics Circle:National Book Critics Circle Award
Language:
English
URL:
https://samples.overdrive.com/dreamland-c8a88f?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
URL:
http://voebb.lib.overdrive.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=C8A88FB7-C369-454C-B113-9703B1816D57
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