NCW Libraries

The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival....

It is a documentary film that tells the story about the heroin and opioid epidemic from the viewpoint of those on the front lines of this national crisis. The film features four families whose lives have been impacted and forever changed by addiction and includes stories from those currently using, people in recovery, as well as perspectives from law enforcement, health care workers, judges, prosecutors, and others who deal with people in this crisis...

When a young woman turns to the camera for refuge, she ends up with a firsthand account of the deadliest manufactured epidemic in U.S. history. This is Jamie Boyle's chronicle of her family's collision with the opioid epidemic.

"When Annie Brown, a fun-loving woman, suddenly dies, her husband, best friend, and her children all struggle to find ways to go on after the loss of the woman who was the center of their lives, and who made life happy, fun, and secure. Her husband is overwhelmed with four children to raise, and turns to his teenage daughter for help, and to an old girlfriend for solace. Annie's best friend struggles again with opioid addiction, having depended on...

Cole Freeman maintains an uneasy equilibrium in his Appalachian town, looking after the old and infirm in the community while selling their excess painkillers to local addicts to make ends meet. But when an old friend returns with dangerous new plans that threaten the fragile balance Cole has crafted in his declining mountain town, his world and identity are thrown into deep disarray. A moving lyrical hymn for the complex tangle of hardship and hope...

"American cartel is an unflinching and deeply documented dive into the culpability of the drug companies behind the staggering death toll of the opioid epidemic. It follows of a small band of DEA agents led by Joe Rannazzisi, a tough-talking New Yorker who had spent a storied 30 years bringing down bad guys, along with a band of lawyers led by West Virginia native Paul Farrell Jr. who fought to hold the drug industry to account in the face of the...

A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic--devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions. The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked...

After a bad fall, Tom, in constant pain and addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, realizes he can never work again and ends up in subsidized housing, where he hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud with neighbors he considers lowlifes. Tom Lowe's identity and his pride are invested in the work he does with his back and his hands. He designed and built his family's dream home, working extra hours...

"When Rick Van Warner found himself searching abandoned buildings and dangerous streets looking for his missing son, he had no idea that the synthetic, pill-form heroin that had snared his teen was already killing so many. In the years of pain and heartache that followed as he tried to save his son from opioid addiction, Van Warner discovered what the American public is just now becoming aware of: opioids prescribed for even minor pain relief are...