Overview

A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism Named a best book of the year by: the Los Angeles Times the San Francisco Chronicle the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch the Chicago Tribune the Seattle Times ""A stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country.""-New York Post The dramatic story of Methamphetamine as it comes to the American Heartland-a timely, moving, account of one community's attempt to confront the epidemic and see their way to a brighter future. The bestselling book that launched meth back into the nation's consciousness. Based on Reding's four years of reporting in the agricultural town of Oelwein, Iowa, and tracing the connections to the global forces that set the stage for the meth epidemic, Methland offers a vital perspective on a contemporary tragedy. It is a portrait of a community under siege, of the lives that meth has devastated, and of the heroes who continue to fight the war.

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9781608192076

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Reviews

""The book, wrought from old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting... isn't chiefly a tale of drugs and crime, of dysfunction and despair, but a recession-era tragedy... in the tradition of James Agee."" --Walter Kirn, New York Times Book Review ""What's most impressive about Methland is not the wealth of information it provides, but the depth of Reding's compassion for the individuals meth has touched."" --Francine Prose, O Magazine ""The strength of Methland lies... in its character studies. As a ""social problem,"" meth is dull and intractable, as are all such problems; reduced, or rather elevated, to the individual level, it is piercing and poignant."" --Wall Street Journal ""Tells a complicated story in comprehensible, human dimensions. Like all good journalism, it's the hand holding up the mirror, the friend telling us to take a cold, hard look at ourselves."" --Los Angeles Times ""Methland tells a story less about crime than about the death of an iconic way of life."" --Details ""Reding's tale of economic despair and drug abuse in America's heartland is violent, sobering, explosive (literally and figuratively), as unstoppable as a meth-induced seizure, and not for the faint of heart."" --PopMatters ""A story that manages to be both devastating and uplifting . . . [Reding's] exploration of Methland should be required reading for everyone who lives or works in a community that could be--and may be--not so different from Oelwein, Iowa."" --Emporia Gazette ""At times harrowing, at times infuriating, Methland is an elegy, not a eulogy. The book shows that dedicated citizens can have a positive impact in the face of monumental obstacles."" --HuffPost ""Persuasive . . . Methland makes the case that small-town America is perhaps not the moral and hard-working place of the public imagination, but it also argues that big-city ignorance--fueled by the media--toward small-town decay is both dangerous and appalling."" --the Washington Post ""[Methland] is a stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country."" --New York Post ""Through scrupulous reporting and fierce moral engagement, [Reding] conveys the tragedy of the meth epidemic on both a micro- and macroscopic level."" --Village Voice ""Nick Reding's journey into Methland uncovers small Iowa towns overrun with crankheads clawing their way to recovery."" --Vanity Fair

Author Information

Nick Reding is the author of The Last Cowboys at the End of the World, and his writing has appeared in Outside, Food and Wine, and Harper's. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he decided to move back to his home town in the course of reporting this book.

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