Sam Quinones. (2021). The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Sam Quinones. 2021. The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Sam Quinones, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.

Sam Quinones. The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.

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   • bioText: Sam Quinones is a journalist, storyteller, former LA Times reporter, and author of four acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction, including New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic. "The most original writer on Mexico and the border" (San Francisco Chronicle), he lives with his family in Tennessee.
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Apple Best Books of 2021
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal * Shortlisted for the Zocalo Book Prize
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair.
Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland, a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay ahead: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent than ever, creating, Sam argues, swaths of mental illness and a surge in homelessness across the United States.

Quinones hit the road to investigate these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. "In a time when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like traffickers," he writes, "our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community." Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable.

Weaving analysis of the drug trade into stories of humble communities, The Least of Us delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in Sam Quinones's award-winning Dreamland.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The New Yorker
   • content: This layered chronicle traces how methamphetamine and fentanyl became scourges of American life. . . . Quinones places the narrative in a range of illuminating contexts.
2. • premium: False
   • source: The Washington Post
   • content: Sam Quinones is perhaps our best big-picture analyst of America's markets for addictive drugs ... He is a fluent storyteller who delivers his argument through a palette of affecting stories ... Few readers will keep dry eyes through the entire book
3. • premium: False
   • source: New York Times Book Review
   • content: American pain. This is the territory of Sam Quinones, a masterly reporter and vivid, lyrical writer.
4. • premium: False
   • source: Ann Coulter, Townhall
   • content: Jam-packed with amazing facts and, like all of Quinones' work, reads like a thriller. You may think you know this story. Trust me, you don't.
5. • premium: False
   • source: New York Journal of Books
   • content: Together with his earlier Dreamland, The Least of Us confirms his place as a leading chronicler of an American nightmare.
6. • premium: False
   • source: Los Angeles Times, 11 Books to Add to Your Reading List
   • content: Chronicles how meth-ravaged communities have broken the cycle of drug abuse, violence and despair.
7. • premium: False
   • source: New York Post
   • content: This well-researched follow-up traces the next stage of the epidemic, with synthetic drugs and the next generation of kingpins. There is plenty of heartache, yes, but there is also hope in its exploration of communities trying to repair themselves.
     
8. • premium: False
   • source: Plough Quarterly, Editors' Pick
   • content: Excellent ... an urgent and gripping account.
9. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly (starred review)
   • content: A richly rewarding report from the front lines of an ongoing emergency.
10. • premium: False
    • source: Taki's Magazine
    • content: Outstanding ... elegantly written.
11. • premium: False
    • source: Seattle Book Review
    • content: A heartrending depiction of the current phase of the quixotic drug war. Sam Quinones covers the human drama with an admirable empathy.
12. • premium: False
    • source: Washington Independent Review of Books
    • content: [Dreamland] dug deeply into the circumstances and lives of the people who created, profited, battled, and suffered from the drug epidemic that has devastated huge swaths of the heartland beginning in the 1990s. . . . The Least of Us picks up where Dreamland left off and describes how the drug crisis - fueled as much by the Sacklers as by Mexican traffickers - has evolved.
13. • premium: False
    • source: Front Porch
    • content: A welcome corrective to the tendency to ignore the local roots of this crisis.
14. • premium: False
    • source: Sen. Lamar Alexander
    • content: In The Least of Us, Quinones has continued his meticulous reporting to capture a full picture of how America's communities are working to resist the damage caused by illegal synthetic drugs – and also to fight the epidemic of isolation by repairing the threads of connection that have so badly frayed.
15. • premium: False
    • source: Ioan Grillo, author of BLOOD GUN MONEY
    • content: With deep compassion and piercing insight, Sam Quinones beautifully captures the pain of America's opioid addiction and the gaping holes in society that allowed the tragedy to fester. He then not only offers condemnation of how we got here but true hope of how we can get out.
16. • premium: False
    • source: Michael Botticelli, Former Director, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
    • content: By combining rigorous research, keen insight and listening to people's stories across the country, Sam [Quinones has once again captured not only the pain and sadness but the resiliency and optimism that have come to be the hallmark of this epidemic.
17. • premium: False
    • source: Angus Deaton, Nobel Laureate in Economics and co-author of DEATHS OF DESPAIR
    • content: Sam Quinones is the indispensable ground-level guide to the epidemics of addiction that plague so many American ... Everyone should read this.
18. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      August 15, 2021
      Quinones sounds an alarm about a rapidly spreading form of meth in a follow-up to his award-winning Dreamland. Buried in this overstuffed book lies an urgent story the author sees as overshadowed by the opioid crisis: the explosive growth of the potentially lethal form of synthetic methamphetamine known as P2P (phenyl-2-propanone). Through extensive but rambling interviews with people ranging from dealers to Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Quinones found that unlike earlier types of meth, made with hard-to-get ephedrine, P2P meth could be more easily made from "legal, cheap, and toxic" chemicals in Mexican labs and shipped north by traffickers. P2P, he learned, could cause intense paranoia and terrifying hallucinations and faster and worse harm than ephedrine-based forms: The new meth "was quickly, intensely damaging people's brains." Quinones maps the wreckage nationwide, including that it drew Black dealers to what had been "a working-class white drug." What he learned is genuinely alarming but embedded in background material on topics that have been extensively covered elsewhere: the neuroscience behind addiction, the pre-P2P shifts from prescription painkillers to heroin to fentanyl, the toll opioids have taken in West Virginia, and the Sackler family's disastrous stewardship of Purdue Pharma. The author also describes effective community-based responses to the crisis, such as church shelters for homeless addicts and "drug courts" that offer substance abusers an alternative to prison. Quinones concludes that the nation has forsaken "what has made America great" and that "when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like drug traffickers, our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community." After his account of the corporate missteps of the Sacklers and others, readers may be unpersuaded that the "best defense" might come from hard-hit communities themselves rather than from remedies such as tighter government regulation of rapacious corporations like Purdue Pharma. A valuable but overlong overview of an underappreciated drug crisis.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

19. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      September 1, 2021
      In a clear follow-up to Dreamland (2015), Quinones further delves into stories of America's meth and opioid crises. Yearly deaths from overdoses continue to climb due to fentanyl and a new type of meth made more cheaply and easily without ephedrine. Quinones chronicles the devastation wrought by these newer synthetic drugs, while also showing how corporate marketing and Americans' desire for a quick fix combined with our addictive nature tie into the problem. But he also writes of hope; towns that have completely revamped the system to encourage recovery not punishment, a sheriff who helps addicted people by employing them, a woman dedicated to providing free tattoo removal for those in recovery. Quinones introduces a lot of people in a lot of places, and does a good job of keeping everyone straight. He is always engaging, though some information feels rehashed and his conclusions don't always seem clear. Regardless, readers looking for the latest take on the drug trade and recovery as well as those who flock to well written journalism will dig into this.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

20. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      Starred review from September 13, 2021
      Journalist Quinones follows Dreamland with a sweeping portrait of the destruction wrought by pharmaceutical companies, Mexican cartels, and other drug profiteers, and an inspirational call for a renewed sense of community to combat the isolation of addiction. Quinones reports from Mexican meth labs, Ohio treatment centers, federal prosecutors’ offices, and the Stamford, Conn., headquarters of OxyContin makers Purdue Pharma, where sculptor Domenic Esposito displayed an 800-pound “Opioid Spoon” in 2018. Quinones also delves into the history of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid first manufactured in the 1950s that began to appear in significant quantities in the U.S. in the mid-2010s. More addictive and profitable than previous opioids—and also far more likely to result in a fatal overdose—fentanyl has largely displaced heroin in the street trade, according to Quinones, who lucidly explains how opioid usage rewires the brain’s dopamine receptors, making it impossible to achieve a feeling of happiness without the aid of the drug. Vivid character profiles of drug runners and abusers, their family members, and social workers and addiction treatment counselors make the scale of the tragedy clear, while providing persuasive evidence that the battle against the opioid crisis can be won by “breaking down silos,” fostering interpersonal connections, and believing “that the least of us lies within us all.” This is a richly rewarding report from the front lines of an ongoing emergency.

21. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      Starred review from October 1, 2021
      

      Quinones follows up Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (a 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award winner) with new reportage on drug trade and addiction in the United States. The book profiles individuals and communities to illustrate how the illicit drug trade has shifted from opioids to the far more dangerous fentanyl and new methamphetamine formulations; he makes the case that the nation is saturated with these potent fentanyl concoctions and homemade meth. His data demonstrates that fentanyl kills a steadily increasing number of people in the U.S., while the new meth can cause methamphetamine psychosis, with huge impacts for people experiencing homelessness. Quinones also interviews neuroscientists about addiction's effects on the brain and learns that sugar and addictive drugs follow the same neural pathways. He writes that legal prescription opiates fueled the illicit drug trade, which he compares to American capitalist culture and powerful consolidated markets that promote consumerism. He also posits that the American culture of individualism leaves people with addiction on their own. VERDICT Highly recommended for those interested in social justice and the strength of communities. Quinones argues that community can and must save "the least of us."--Caren Nichter, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin

      Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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Apple Best Books of 2021
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal * Shortlisted for the Zocalo Book Prize
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair.
Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland, a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay ahead: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more...

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1. • source: The National Book Critics Circle
   • value: National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

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True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth

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Bloomsbury Publishing

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   • description: Social Science / Criminology
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   • description: Social Science / Disease & Health Issues