The Heart and Other Monsters
A Memoir
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4.4 • 10 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
"Impossible to put down. It haunts me still." -Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir
A riveting, deeply personal exploration of the opioid crisis-an empathic memoir infused with hints of true crime.
In November 2013, Rose Andersen's younger sister Sarah died of an overdose in the bathroom of her boyfriend's home in a small town with one of the highest rates of opioid use in the state. Like too many of her generation, she had become addicted to heroin. Sarah was 24 years old.
To imagine her way into Sarah's life, Rose revisits their volatile childhood, marked by their stepfather's omnipresent rage and their father's pathological lying. As the dysfunction comes into focus, so does a broader picture of the opioid crisis and the drug rehabilitation industry in small towns across America. And when Rose learns from the coroner that Sarah's cause of death was a methamphetamine overdose, the story takes a wildly unexpected turn.
As Andersen sifts through her sister's last days, we come to recognize the contours of grief and its aftermath: the psychic shattering which can turn to anger, the pursuit of an ever-elusive verdict, and the intensely personal rites of imagination and art needed to actually move on.
Reminiscent of Alex Marzano-Lesnevich's The Fact of a Body, Maggie Nelson's Jane: A Murder, and Lacy M. Johnson's The Other Side, Andersen's debut is a potent, profoundly original journey into and out of loss.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Essayist Andersen's debut memoir is the riveting and raw story of her dysfunctional childhood and her younger sister's 2013 death from a meth overdose. Andersen and her sister grow up in California, with an artist mother and a father with writing aspirations who cheats on his spouse, lies, and verbally abuses his family. The couple divorces when the girls are four and 10, and their mother temporarily partners with an emotionally abusive boyfriend. As they grow older, each sister becomes drawn to drugs: Andersen becomes dependent on cocaine and alcohol (she later quits both, and conquers Hodgkin's lymphoma), but Sarah drawn to opioids, heroin, and methadone is unsuccessful in her attempts to get clean through rehab. Andersen is critical yet protective toward her sibling, and blames herself for not being more understanding and patient though she tries to support Sarah's rehabilitation. After Sarah is found dead from an overdose at age 24, Andersen scours the coroner's report and later court transcripts, delving into evidence suggesting that Sarah's lethal dose was not accidental, but rather, administered by a man who thought she knew too much about a heinous crime he had committed. This tragic tale of addiction will resonate deeply with readers.
Customer Reviews
A+
I read this entire book in one sitting because I couldn’t stop devouring every word.
It is honest and beautifully written.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see this story turned into an HBO mini-series one day.
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