Last year in the US, opioids were involved in more than 80,000 overdose deaths, representing yet another hike in an epidemic that began in the mid-1990s and shows no signs of abating. Fury at the now well-documented role big pharma played in its creation ripples through Barbara Kingsolver’s charged new novel, a hillbilly coming-of-age saga that seizes from its opening line.
“First, I got myself born,” announces its protagonist, Damon Fields – no mean feat given that his addict mother, little more than a child herself, is lying passed out among her pill bottles in a trailer home in Lee County, Virginia.
