About the Book
Nearly a decade into the second wave of America’s overdose crisis, pharmaceutical companies have yet to answer for the harms they created. As pending court battles against opioid makers, distributors, and retailers drag on, addiction rates have soared to record-breaking levels during the COVID pandemic, illustrating the critical need for leadership, urgency, and change. Meanwhile, there is scant consensus between law enforcement and medical leaders, nor an understanding of how to truly scale the programs that are out there, working at the ragged edge of capacity and actually saving lives.
Distilling this massive, unprecedented national health crisis down to its character-driven emotional core as only she can, Beth Macy takes us into the country’s hardest hit places to witness the devastating personal costs that one-third of America’s families are now being forced to shoulder. Here we meet the ordinary people fighting for the least of us with the fewest resources, from harm reductionists risking arrest to bring lifesaving care to the homeless and addicted to the activists and bereaved families pushing to hold Purdue and the Sackler family accountable. These heroes come from all walks of life; what they have in common is an up-close and personal understanding of addiction that refuses to stigmatize—and therefore abandon—people who use drugs, as big pharma execs and many politicians are all too ready to do.
Praise for Raising Lazarus
Patrick Radden Keefe, bestselling author of Empire of Pain: “When the Covid epidemic seized the headlines, America’s overdose epidemic did not go away; in fact, it intensified. Beth Macy is one of the great chroniclers of how we got here and where we are headed. RAISING LAZARUS is a necessary companion to the urgent story she told in DOPESICK, a deeply reported, deeply moving, boots on the ground picture of what the crisis of addiction is doing to our country, and of the activists and ordinary people who are working to fight it. In that respect, this is a surprisingly hopeful book, the tale of a catastrophic crisis, but also of profound compassion and the resilience of the human spirit.”
Evan Osnos, New York Times bestselling author of Wildland: “Raising Lazarus confirms Beth Macy’s status as America’s nonfiction laureate of the opioid crisis. This book is a force of inspiration that will make you believe not in miracles but in work – the sheer innovative, determined, empathic work of ordinary Americans. They are shifting the rightful place of shame from drug users to drugmakers.”
Anne Case and Angus Deaton, New York Times bestselling authors of Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism: “Beth Macy is America’s indispensable guide to the opioid epidemic. She brings great humanity and unparalleled storytelling to her work. Through her, the horrors of opioids are better known but, as this update makes clear, the suffering goes on. We owe her a great debt.”
Sarah Smarsh, New York Times bestselling author of Heartland: “Macy brings her empathetic reporter’s craft to the oft-ignored problem solvers on the ground; those who, as Macy writes, didn’t wait around for justice. Macy didn’t either. Unlike so many laws, court decisions and news stories, Raising Lazarus does right by the victims of the opioid crisis.”
Jessica Bruder, author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century: “Beth Macy has done it again. Her clear-sighted, deeply humane reporting takes readers to the front lines of the opioid crisis, where a grassroots network of brave activists work to defy stigma, save lives and hold power to account in the long shadow of the Sackler dynasty. This is potent, essential storytelling and a much-needed reminder of our common humanity that points, ultimately, towards hope.”
Ryan Hampton, person in recovery from addiction, national advocate, and author of Unsettled and American Fix: “Through brilliant prose and journalistic genius, Beth Macy once again opens our hearts and takes us inside the battle to end America’s overdose crisis. RAISING LAZARUS is a coming home story for many of us on the frontlines—a masterfully written, well researched, honest, and hopeful account like no other. Macy’s storytelling is unmatched and translates our experiences into a literary masterpiece—offering a prescriptive path forward to curb this national health crisis.”
Media Highlights
Interviews and original essays with the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, BookPage, Oprah Daily, and more.
Reviews and features in the San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews (starred review), BookPage (starred review), and Fresh Air.
