OPIOID, INDIANA
By Brian Allen Carr
Soho Press, September 17, 2019
Seventeen-year-old Riggle is living in rural Indiana with his uncle and uncle’s girlfriend after the death of both of his parents. Now his uncle has gone missing, probably on a drug binge. It’s Monday, and $800 in rent is due Friday. Riggle, who’s been suspended from school, has to either find his uncle or get the money together himself. His mission exposes him to a motley group of Opioid locals—encounters by turns perplexing, harrowing, and heartening. Meanwhile, Riggle marks each day by remembering the mythology his late mother invented for him about how the days got their names.
With amazing directness and insight, Carr explores what it’s like to be a high school kid in in the age of Trump, a time of economic inequality, addiction, confederate flags, and mass shootings. A work of empathy and insight, Opioid, Indiana pierces to the heart of our moment through an unforgettable protagonist.
Selected Praise
“Brian Allen Carr’s Opioid, Indiana is a propulsive, haunting novel taking the reader through the week of a family on the fringes of collapse. Carr’s spare prose and ability to write about struggle in such a powerful way will surely mark him as an important writer to watch. I loved it!”
—Brandon Hobson, author of Where the Dead Sit Talking
About the Author
Brian Allen Carr lives in Indiana. He is the author of the novel Sip, along with several novellas and story collections. He is the winner of a Wonderland Book Award and Texas Observer Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Granta, Ninth Letter, Hobart, Boulevard and other publications.