I’ve tried to boil my thoughts about this book down into something articulate, and I’m not sure I succeeded, but here we go. In the most basic sense, this book blew me away. This novel is a family saga with an underlying mystery. The story begins with a series of murders in Kensington, PA, a town ravaged by the opioid crisis. Mickey, a cop, patrols streets filled with needles, prostitution, and addicts looking for a fix. One addict is her sister, Kacey. Their only interactions over five years consist of Mickey arresting Kacey for solicitation or intent to distribute. Moving between the time before Kacey’s addiction and present, this story explores the effects of addiction on family. Mickey, despite the lack of contact with her sister, remains hopeful that Kacey will eventually get clean. And yet, Mickey is uncomfortably aware that addiction is a beast few come back from. To chase a fix is to chase darkness, a moment of numbness, a moment of clarity, a moment of silence, a moment where you aren’t fighting the addiction. Even if you come back, you’re forever waging war with the addiction.
Lyrically written, this nearly 500-page novel moves effortlessly through an expertly crafted mystery. The mystery aside, though, the characters are developed so thoroughly. You feel Kacey’s desperation to reclaim her life, making promises you know will be broken by a pull too strong. You feel Mickey’s unfettered love for a sister she’s, quite literally, brought back from the dead only to lose her time and again to addiction. Perhaps that’s the strongest feeling this book conveys – to have someone physically there and yet see no trace of them. This novel is ripe with vulnerability and compassion as it traverses the – dare I say, long bright river, of the disease of addiction. There are characters who condescendingly comment on the choices that the people on the streets make – failing to realize that, for many, the choice simply does not exist.
Read It Like Rory 