Opioid, Indiana

Book excerpt: "Full of gorgeous language and wild insights."—Nick Flynn Set in the beleaguered heart of Indiana’s opioid crisis, Brian Allen Carr’s timely and tender novel about a teen struggling to find his place in the world—and come up with $800 rent—is at once a moving rumination on the hopeful power of story and a harrowing insight into modern America. It is a book you won’t soon forget. Seventeen-year-old Riggle is living in rural Indiana with his uncle and uncle’s girlfriend after the death of his parents. Now his uncle is missing, probably on a drug binge. It’s Monday, and $800 in rent is due Friday. Riggle, who’s been suspended from school, has to either find his uncle or get the money together himself. His mission exposes him to a motley group of Opioid locals—encounters by turns perplexing, harrowing, and heartening. With empathy and insight, Carr explores what it’s like to be a high school kid in the age of Trump—a time of economic inequality, addiction, Confederate flags, and mass shootings. Through the voice of its unforgettable protagonist—charismatic, confused, searching, by turns cynical and naïve, wise and impulsive—Opioid, Indiana pierces to the heart of our moment.