The Heart and Other Monsters: A Memoir

By Rose Andersen

Book Overview

"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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1635575141
• ISBN13: 9781635575149
• Release Date: July 2020
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.7" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Raw

The Heart and Other Monsters by Rose Andersen reviewed by: HuberK Green Forest, Arkansas, USA I was interested in reading about how the opioid crisis has affected one family. It is a raw, emotional book, covering the addictions of the author's entire family. The author was able to overcome her addiction, her sister was not. There is an additional element of true crime that surrounds the death of Ms. Andersen's sister Sarah. The possibility that her death could have in truth, been a murder sounds plausible. Unfortunately, when you are around deep, dark criminal elements, life rarely works out in a positive light. One thing I noticed throughout the book, there was no mention of God in anyone's lives. That coupled with a high abortion rate, the quantity and quality of hard drugs available on the street, there is no doubt that the USA has some terrible problems that are not going to get any better, they way they are headed. Sarah had family and friends who loved her and cared about her, but in the end, that didn't matter. A tragedy, all the way around. I feel badly, for this family who lost a family member, a daughter, a sister, a child. I received a complimentary copy from Bloomsbury Publishing and was under no obligation to post a review.