Opioid, Indiana

July 29, 2019
The landscape of Middle America is grim but has glimmers of hope in this outstanding novel from Carr (Sip). Riggle, 17, is on the verge of adulthood and feels like a misfit in the rural Indiana town he has recently moved to from his native Texas. His parents dead, he lives with his young uncle Joe and Joe’s girlfriend, Peggy, more an object of lust to Riggle than a surrogate mom. Riggle’s suspension from school for vaping only amps up his aimlessness. He has one good friend, named Bennet, a fellow high school student and neighbor. They hang out, go to the movies together, and ponder their futures after the recent school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Nostalgia about his mother’s omelets leads Riggle to a restaurant called Broth, where he finds a connection with the chef and almost lands a job. Joe is away from home, getting high—in fact, everyone around seems to get high—and the upcoming rent payment looms large. As Riggle’s week of suspension progresses, flashbacks reveal happier times during his childhood, and there’s an unexpected death, the possibility of new friends, and a threat from a local yokel at the other end of a gun. The first-person narration has authenticity and candor. Carr’s novel is both gripping and timely.

August 1, 2019
An orphan has an eventful week when he's suspended from school. This new book by Carr (Sip, 2017, etc.) is painful to read but wonderfully crafted and artfully poignant in its reflection of our times. The narrator is 17-year-old Riggle Quick, the Holden Caulfield of a rural Indiana in the depths of the opioid crisis and the racism empowered by the president of the United States. First, Riggle gets suspended because some jerk in his high school turns in a THC vaporizer, claiming it's his. He spends the rest of his week of suspension exploring the peculiar world he's trapped in, having been sent there from Texas after his parents died. He sees Black Panther with his best friend, Bennet, but first has to shave Bennet's head because he's biracial and is just light enough to pass without his Afro, so he won't get hassled by the cops for cutting school. We learn Riggle's dad was a truck driver who died in a crash, and while it's not called out, it looks like mom OD'ed. Riggle has the hots for his aunt (by marriage) Peggy, but he's also been charged with finding his Uncle Joe, a junkie who's gone missing. Riggle's poignant, candid narration is punctuated by that of Remote, a shadow-puppet bird invented by his mother who tells Riggle fables about how each day of his lousy week was named. The most delightful sections come when Riggle, who doesn't know what the hell he wants to do with his life, barges into a restaurant called Broth and convinces the caustic chef to take him on as a dishwasher. There's also serious, painful stuff here: "Sometimes you feel so terrible that all you know is that you need something, and when people feel that way, they go out looking," says Riggle. Finally, Carr slips in a great word here that Riggle borrows from a Latina friend in Texas who asked him the first day, "You a smuggler or a struggler?" The confessions of a teenage struggler who just needs some time to figure it all out.

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August 23, 2019

At age 17, Riggle is sent from Texas to rural Indiana to live with extended family after losing both of his parents. He ends up at the home of his drug-addicted uncle, and his uncle's girlfriend, Peggy. Riggle philosophizes the way teenagers do best about life in Indiana, renaming his town "Opioid," after the vast addiction problem there. He riffs on vaping, racism, school shootings, and the prevalence of the Confederate flag like a college professor who knows all the answers. But for all of Riggle's intellectual prowess and crowing, he's lost when it comes to his uncle, who is on a drug binge and nowhere to be found just as the rent is due, and Peggy is a disaster. Riggle expounds on the locals in Opioid, such as "Autistic Ross," who mainly wanders the street and waves at children. He also thinks back and shares stories of his mother, who created her own mythological folktales using shadow puppets to explain how words got their meanings, like the days of the week. VERDICT Like his all-knowing young protagonist, Carr (Slip; Vampire Conditions) is a writer of modern, crisp, and quick prose. This latest novel presents a fresh twist on today's teenager in a wasteland of drugs and economic hardship.--Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

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