Ep. 164 Breaking a Story with Patrick Radden Keefe

Our guest today is staff writer at The New Yorker, and award winning author Patrick Radden Keefe. We talk about his newest book Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, and the ways the opioid crisis was directly connected to their drug OxyContin. We also discuss Patrick’s thinking around breaking a story, writing after the success of his bestselling book Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, and his foray into podcasting with his show Wind of Change.

The Stacks Book Club selection for May is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy . We will discuss the book with Jenny Lee on Wednesday May 26th.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

• Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

• Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

• "Mortimer D. Sackler, Arts Patron, Dies at 93" (Bruce Webber, The New York Times)

• "Jonathan Sackler, co-owner of Purdue Pharma, dies" (Associated Press, The Washington Post)

• Patrick Radden Keefe | The New Yorker

• "The family that built an empire of pain" (Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker)

• The Snakehead by Patrick Radden Keefe

• "The Snakehead" (Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker)

• "Where the bodies are buried" (Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker)

• Maura Healey

• Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (Netflix)

• Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

• "El Chapo escapes again" (Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker)

• "Cocaine Incorporated" (Patrick Radden Keefe, The New York Times Magazine)

• The Museum of Modern Art (New York, New York)

• Doubleday

• A Promised Land by Barack Obama

• Manchester United

• Manchester City

• Clint Smith

• Chatter by Patrick Radden Keefe

• Wind of Change (Pineapple Street Studios / Crooked Media / Spotify)

• Dreamland by Sam Quinones

• Dopesick by Beth Macy

• Pain Killer by Barry Meier

• In Pain by Travis Rieder

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