Aside from a fascination with the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Keefe's Sackler narrative, as it flims and flams between the noble posturing of mega philanthropy and the down-and-out darkness Oxycontin brings to the doped-up masses, Empire of Pain sadly recalls, for the reader of a certain age, the period between 1965 and 1975 when young Americans were dropping dead steadily from heroin overdoses, and their loss was the everyday news, and methadone took people from the cooking spoon to the fire of addiction, and the counterculture seemed to get obliterated overnight and the world returned to the "squares." Keefe reminds us that in the 60s the drugs were illegal; killer Oxy is prescribed.
All in all, Empire of Pain is an absorbing account of plentitude and wealth, of privilege and entitlement, of class in-breeding and its consequence, that is at once full of ennui and entertaining dysfunction. As if we needed a push, Keefe adequately lays out reasons we shouldn't bow or kow-tow to patricians and rogue nobles and the one-percenters the MSM dresses up like Ken and GI Joe and Barbie dolls to distract us from the fact that we live in an abattoir world, a realm of haves and have-nots filled with riches for some who get wealthy off the pain of others, even when they claim to be peddling relief.
(Article changed on Jun 20, 2021 at 7:50 PM EDT)
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