Bingo: Monster (The Sacklers themselves, in case that’s not obvious)
I read Say Nothing a few months ago, and it was excellent–so good that Empire of Pain immediately shot to the top of my TBR list.
Empire of Pain is the story of the Sackler family–the family behind Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company responsible for Oxycontin. I’ve read books before about the opioid epidemic and the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma have been mentioned–but this deep dive into the family was FASCINATING.
Empire of Pain is divided into three parts: the first part is a biography of Arthur Sackler, the oldest of three brothers, a doctor who went into pharmaceuticals and got rich off of the development of Valium. Part 2 covers the rise of Purdue Pharma, a pharmaceutical company that Arthur bought for his younger brothers, Mortimer and Raymond, and the development and popularity explosion of Oxycontin. Part 3 is about the demise of Purdue Pharma and the destruction of the Sacklers’ reputation–a reputation they’d built up by painstakingly adding layers and layers of insulation between themselves and their pharmaceutical endeavors, and by becoming leading philanthropists and champions of the arts.
I’ll say it again–this is book is incredible. Just like Say Nothing, it’s absolutely jaw-dropping. The sheer audacity, ruthlessness, utter disregard for human life that the Sacklers displayed is unbelievable. If this book were a work of fiction, you’d say they were too villainous to be realistic. Of course, we can’t blame the entire opioid epidemic on them, but it’s tempting to do so. Good lord, they are despicable. Patrick Radden Keefe does an excellent job of illustrating the many pieces that had to come together to get us to our current situation, while consistently holding the Sacklers’ feet to the fire.
Keefe is a masterful journalist. I would read literally anything he wrote. This book is so important.
(PS, John Oliver set up a website where actors perform readings of a deposition by a Sackler–sacklergallery.com–which is amazing and you should check it out. Richard Kind’s interpretation is my favorite.)