Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
The Heart and Other Monsters - A Memoir - cover

We are sorry! The publisher (or author) gave us the instruction to take down this book from our catalog. But please don't worry, you still have more than 500,000 other books you can enjoy!

The Heart and Other Monsters - A Memoir

Rose Andersen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

"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.
Available since: 07/07/2021.
Print length: 224 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • School of the Moon - The Highland Cattle-raiding Tradition - cover

    School of the Moon - The...

    Stuart McHardy

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Behind the tales of cateran raiding in the Scottish Highlands was an age old practice, beloved of the clan warriors. Trained in the ways of the School of the Moon they liked little better than raiding other clans to lift their cattle and disappear into the wild mountains under the cover of darkness. If pursued and battle became necessary, that was no problem to the clansmen. This traditional practice of the Scottish Highland warriors, originating at least as far back as the Iron Age, has left us many grand stories, apocryphal and historical.
    Through investigating these stories Stuart McHardy came across material, some of it as yet unpublished, which leads to a startling new interpretation of what was going on in the Scottish Highlands in the years after Culloden. The British government called it cattle thieving but the men who returned to the ways of the School of the Moon were the last Jacobites, fighting on in a doomed guerrilla campaign against an army that had a garrison in every glen and town in Scotland.
    Show book
  • The Midnight Assassin - Panic Scandal and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer - cover

    The Midnight Assassin - Panic...

    Skip Hollandsworth

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885 
    In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. 
    Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city. 
    With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life. 
    The introduction and epilogue are read by the author.
    Show book
  • The 9 11 Conspiracy - WTC: Twin Towers: September 11 2001 - cover

    The 9 11 Conspiracy - WTC: Twin...

    Albert Jack

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    From the internationally best selling author of Red Herrings and White Elephants, Pop Goes the Weasel, New World Order and many more;The events of 9/11 2001 must not be forgotten because the consequences and still revolving around the world today.The events that took place on September 11, 2001 were the most important of our generation. Possibly the most important of our lifetimes and certainly the since the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the Second World War. But they will definitely not be the Crime of the Century. There is much more to come, although hopefully not in my lifetime.For over a decade we have been told on every news program, every radio bulletin, in speeches, statements & announcements, front page stories, magazine articles, Government policy announcements and by every government official throughout the West; that the world has changed. And we have to react with it.We are told that 9/11 has changed the course of our domestic and foreign policy. (It certainly has) Our civil liberties must be amended with the changing times. Those responsible and their allies must be hunted down and punished, however loosely connected they are, regardless of the cost, either in human or financial measure.The event must not be forgotten. It should dominate debate, both public and private. We must reconfigure, adapt, refocus, reprioritise and come together as one, with our allies, to defend our freedoms and liberties.And we should do everything we can to make sure it never happens again. And that means we must rely on the elected policy makers, who are advised by experts with minds immeasurably greater than ours. And then do as we are told and pay for it.Really, how does a projectile manage to hit the Pentagon in Washington DC? How can that even happen, never mind New York for the moment.How do Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble manage to pull that off?So find out who really was responsible and why...?
    Show book
  • The Peasants' Revolting Crimes - cover

    The Peasants' Revolting Crimes

    Terry Deary

    • 0
    • 4
    • 0
    The bestselling author of Horrible Histories “lays bare the kind of crimes peasants would be committing throughout modern history . . . fascinating!” —Books Monthly   Popular history writer Terry Deary takes us on a light-hearted and often humorous romp through the centuries with Mr. & Mrs. Peasant, recounting foul and dastardly deeds committed by the underclasses, as well as the punishments meted out by those on the “right side” of the law.   Discover tales of arsonists and axe-wielders, grave robbers and garroters, poisoners and prostitutes. Delve into the dark histories of beggars, swindlers, forgers, sheep rustlers and a whole host of other felons from the lower ranks of society who have veered off the straight and narrow. There are stories of highwaymen and hooligans, violent gangs, clashing clans and the witch trials that shocked a nation. Learn too about the impoverished workers who raised a riot opposing crippling taxes and draconian laws, as well as the strikers and machine-smashers who thumped out their grievances against new technologies that threatened their livelihoods.   This entertaining book is packed full of revolting acts and acts of revolt, revealing how ordinary folk—from nasty Normans to present-day lawbreakers—have left an extraordinary trail of criminality behind them. The often gruesome penalties exacted in retribution reveal a great deal about some of the most fascinating eras of British history.   “It will tickle your funny bone for hours on end, so much so you will never put it down! In conclusion, this is a great book for children and adults alike. It is not only comedy but it also used 100% historically accurate.” —History . . . The Interesting Bits!
    Show book
  • The Kill Jar - Obsession Descent and a Hunt for Detroit's Most Notorious Serial Killer - cover

    The Kill Jar - Obsession Descent...

    J. Reuben Appelman

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit during the winters of 1976 and 1977, their bodies eventually dumped in snow banks around the city. J. Reuben Appelman was six years old at the time the murders began and had evaded an abduction attempt during that same period, fueling a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killings. 
    Autopsies showed the victims to have been fed while in captivity, reportedly held with care. And yet, with equal care, their bodies had allegedly been groomed post-mortem, scrubbed-free of evidence that might link to a killer. There were few credible leads, and equally few credible suspects. That's what the cops had passed down to the press, and that’s what the city of Detroit, and J. Reuben Appelman, had come to believe. 
    When the abductions mysteriously stopped, a task force operating on one of the largest manhunt budgets in history shut down without an arrest. Although no more murders occurred, Detroit and its environs remained haunted. The killer had, presumably, not been caught.
    Show book
  • Love's Wantonness - cover

    Love's Wantonness

    Thomas Lodge

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    LibriVox volunteers bring you 10 different recordings of Love's Wantonness by Thomas Lodge, published in Tudor and Stuart Love Songs in 1902.  This was the weekly poetry project for the week of August 24th, 2008.
    Show book