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A review by drollgorg
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
dark
informative
slow-paced
4.25
Reading nonfiction books I tend to think about all the work that was involved in getting all these details on the page, and I have to hand it to Patrick Radden Keefe, the guy has done what must have been an insane amount of work tying together the actions of so many nasty people, and you have to imagine the process of double-checking that work as backbreaking too when you consider how fond the Sacklers seem to be of litigating their critics into silence.
Even past the achievement of the book itself, it makes for a gripping story about particular people at the center of not just the opioid crisis, but the shaping of the modern pharmaceutical industry. This book kind of made me want to return to my ideas of being a lawyer, because it got under my skin with the thought that people need to be able to stand up to the Sacklers of the world, and standing on the street with a protest sign isn't going to cut it once you're past a certain level of wealth and non-elected status.
If there is a main critique I have of the book, it seems like there are kind of two stories here- the story of Arthur Sackler, who established the family along with their traditions, businesses, and a lot of modern pharma advertising, and then of the succeeding family members who took the business, ran with it, and their specific choices that led to OxyContin's foundational role in the opioid crisis. The two stories are strongly connected, but they are separate stories, and I would probably have found a greater proportion of the book being spent on the modern Sacklers and Purdue Pharma to be a better balance of Keefe's attention.
Even past the achievement of the book itself, it makes for a gripping story about particular people at the center of not just the opioid crisis, but the shaping of the modern pharmaceutical industry. This book kind of made me want to return to my ideas of being a lawyer, because it got under my skin with the thought that people need to be able to stand up to the Sacklers of the world, and standing on the street with a protest sign isn't going to cut it once you're past a certain level of wealth and non-elected status.
If there is a main critique I have of the book, it seems like there are kind of two stories here- the story of Arthur Sackler, who established the family along with their traditions, businesses, and a lot of modern pharma advertising, and then of the succeeding family members who took the business, ran with it, and their specific choices that led to OxyContin's foundational role in the opioid crisis. The two stories are strongly connected, but they are separate stories, and I would probably have found a greater proportion of the book being spent on the modern Sacklers and Purdue Pharma to be a better balance of Keefe's attention.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction
Moderate: Suicide, Terminal illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis