Methland

The Death and Life of an American Small Town

By: Nick Reding

Narrated by: Mark Boyett

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

The dramatic story of the methamphetamine epidemic as it sweeps the American heartland a timely, moving, very human account of one community s attempt to battle its way to a brighter future.

Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people. As if this weren't enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, long lasting, and highly addictive drug has rolled into town.

Over a period of four years, journalist Nick Reding brings us into the heart of Oelwein through a cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose caseload is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime; and Jeff Rohrick, a meth addict, still trying to kick the habit after 20 years. Tracing the connections between the lives touched by the drug and the global forces that set the stage for the epidemic, Methland offers a vital and unique perspective on a pressing contemporary tragedy.

©2009 Nick Reding (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Mark Boyett’s narration is terrific. He deftly conveys the town’s efforts to deal with the problem and defines various key residents. Particularly strong are his portraits of town doctor Clay Hallburg, who personally observes the growth of the drug and the decline of the town, and prosecutor Nathan Lein, whose caseload is almost entirely meth based." ( AudioFile)

One of the best nonfiction books

Any additional comments?

This is one of the best nonfiction listens I've come across. The book is very well written and researched. While it is disturbing and sad, at the same time there are some very decent people involved in the story. The narrator Mark Boyett does a great job. I highly recommend Methland!

More like Meth town.

Any additional comments?

This story could have used more shock stories about how meth is destroying communities but it only really focuses on two or three people. Does not seem to illustrate the real big problem in the land, just the problem with a few kooky meth heads in a scraggly town. Not real exciting.

Shocking

I am from a small town and have heard that things like this are going on there now. I can't even imagine. This book was well written and well read and I recommend it for anyone who grew up in Smalltown, USA.

Interesting, then not.

An interesting subject that attempts to chronicle the effects of Meth on a small town.

Then it's about the loss of union jobs. Then the Mexican cartels. Then the town again. Then Big Agra. Then the prosecutor's inability to settle down with the love of his life. Then illegal immigrants.

Great subject material in dire need of a good editor.

Great insight, very interesting but...

I enjoyed this book and I learned a lot from it. good read.

My ONLY complaint is that the author seems to attribute all "meth" use to the loss of well paying jobs and sadly that's not the case. There are issues of character that enter into the pattern of drug abuse. I'm sorry, but there are.

Not everyone who falls into the drug trap goes by way of poverty and despair. Many (most?) have mental (physical) and character issues. The choice to USE a drug precedes addiction.

So, yes, great book but a little bit too much blame placed on bad corporations.

Absorbing view of a tragedy in progress

Even though the subject matter is profoundly depressing, Methland is an absorbing read. Looking at the rural meth epidemic through the lens of Oelwein, a quintessential midwestern small town in Iowa, Reding tells a story that's both personal and national. He makes a compelling case for his thesis is that the meth problem isn't simply a matter of addiction, but is strongly tied up in the working class history of the drug, weak regulation to control it (thanks to pharmaceutical lobbyists), and the continuing economic decline of rural America, where cooking meth in one's sink promised many people a steadier future than being a farmer or meat packer.

While the book's writing and analysis are a bit fragmentary, the personal stories paint a stirring picture of an epidemic in progress. The anecdote about the drug dealer who has started hallucinating living human heads in trees, and severely disfigures himself in a lab explosion, reads like a passage from a Stephen King novel. Other stories, while they sometimes wander from the book's primary focus, perhaps make a better point than pages of statistics. It's not hard to visualize broken families, grim, boarded-up store fronts, police forces and social services that lack the resources to do very much, and a cold, midwestern wind howling across a middle America whose fabric is steadily unraveling.

Great Non-Fiction!

This book gives you a new insight into the world of Meth. We always hear about it on the news and read about in the paper, but how it affected one town is truly eye opening. I would start with this book that Nick Reding so thoughtfully wrote and parlay into, 'Beautiful Boy'....it will all seem full circle.

INTERESTING

THIS BOOK WAS BETTER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE. I LISTENED TO IT TWICE.
I'M A FIRM BELIEVER THAT DRUGS ARE A MEDICAL PROBLEM AND SHOULD BE MADE LEGAL. MONEY NEEDS TO BE SPENT ON EDUCATION AND REHAB.THIS BOOK MADE ME REALIZE HOW VERY COMPLEX THE DRUG PROBLEM IS.

Well written and well researched

Not only does this book chronicle the horror of what meth can do in an individuals life but it also looks at the bigger drug picture. Narrator is good as well.

OMG the WORST! DRUG! EVER!

Nick Reding has a nice literary style, which I appreciate in a non-fiction book as it makes for less dry reading. That's one of the redeeming qualities of this book, which was interesting but frankly didn't really bring that much insight to the table. Okay, meth is bad, we all know that. And drug addiction is horrible, drug cartels are evil and dangerous, and poverty tends to breed despair and thus drug use. These are all well-known facts and true of every addictive drug and every drug "epidemic." But color me skeptical when I'm told that this generation's drug is yet another incarnation of the WORST DRUG EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND!

Reding goes into the history of meth and traces the rise of meth as a small town drug that is symbolic of the woes of Middle America by tying it to one town in particular: Oelwein, Iowa. He takes a sample of individual real-life characters -- the optimistic but beleaguered mayor, the pragmatic and cynical prosecutor, the alcoholic doctor, and of course, various dealers and addicts -- to personalize the effects of meth on this town. The stories are interesting but nothing we haven't heard before. Likewise, the rise of the Mexican Mafia is just a reprise of the Colombian cocaine cartels in the 80s. Once again, ham-handed legislation tainted by lobbyist influence managed only to strengthen the hold that organized crime has on the trade.

The connection to globalization and poverty is there, but I think it's a weaker part of Reding's narrative, particularly when he veers into agribusiness consolidation. This represents a whole host of problems afflicting the American heartland, and meth is just one piece of it, more a side effect than a root cause.

I found the book interesting and Reding's storytelling quite adequate, but it seemed like there was quite a bit of filler to pad it out to a full-length book. The Oelwein sections themselves were only part of the book.

This isn't a bad book or even a particularly flawed one, and certainly it increases understanding of the specifics of the drug methamphetamine. But I didn't find it to be ground-breaking, nor wholly convincing in its thesis that meth is the worst!drug!ever! and that the loss of American farming and blue collar jobs is responsible for the problem.