Nick Reding
Author of Methland
About the Author
Nick Reding is a graduate of Northwestern University and was a University Fellow in Creative Writing at NYU. "The Last Cowboys at the End of the World" is his first book. He lives in New York City. His latest nonfiction book is entitled, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town. show more (Publisher Provided) show less
Image credit: Copyright Taka Yanagimoto, 2009
Works by Nick Reding
The Last Cowboys at the End of the World: The Story of the Gauchos of Patagonia (2001) 32 copies, 1 review
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1972-02-15
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Northwestern University (BA l Creative Writing and English Literature)
New York University (MFA l Creative Writing)
New York University (University Fellow) - Short biography
- Nick Reding was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, and received his B.A. in Creative Writing and English Literature from Northwestern University in 1994. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from N.Y.U., where he was a University Fellow from 1995 til 1997. He lived in New York City for thirteen years, where he worked as a magazine editor, a graduate school professor, and a freelance writer. His first book, The Last Cowboys at the End of the World, was published by Crown in 2002. Methland is his second book. His work has appeared in Harper's, Food and Wine, Outside, Fast Company, and Details. He lives with his wife and son in Saint Louis.
- Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- St. Louis, Missouri, USA
New York, New York, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Oh little town of Methlehem, how still we see thee lie
Far from deep dreams of blissful sleep killed by the silent sighs
Yet in thy dark streets pineth, that ever thirsting high
The hopes and fears of all thy tears are met in meth tonight.
The hopes the song of methamphetamine brings are supplied by the drug’s concocting with “anhydrous ammonia [that] can burn through human tissue to the bone.” Pursuit of those hopes by meth users is accompanied by “bleeding skin-sores as your pores show more struggle to open and expel the drug…internal organs shrunken from dehydration; vast areas of the brain that according to CAT scans are completely depleted of neurotransmitters.”
Something is amiss when something like that not only can sell but can become the one thing that matters. Methland: The Life and Death of an American Small Town, by Nick Reding, is the story of that something in the town of Oelwein, Iowa, and elsewhere in America. It is quite a story and is especially so when we listen to residents giving voice to what they have experienced personally or have witnessed in family or friends, and to the confusions and fears they never expected to face. Something not easily borne. show less
Far from deep dreams of blissful sleep killed by the silent sighs
Yet in thy dark streets pineth, that ever thirsting high
The hopes and fears of all thy tears are met in meth tonight.
The hopes the song of methamphetamine brings are supplied by the drug’s concocting with “anhydrous ammonia [that] can burn through human tissue to the bone.” Pursuit of those hopes by meth users is accompanied by “bleeding skin-sores as your pores show more struggle to open and expel the drug…internal organs shrunken from dehydration; vast areas of the brain that according to CAT scans are completely depleted of neurotransmitters.”
Something is amiss when something like that not only can sell but can become the one thing that matters. Methland: The Life and Death of an American Small Town, by Nick Reding, is the story of that something in the town of Oelwein, Iowa, and elsewhere in America. It is quite a story and is especially so when we listen to residents giving voice to what they have experienced personally or have witnessed in family or friends, and to the confusions and fears they never expected to face. Something not easily borne. show less
Nick Reding became aware of methamphetamine abuse in 1999 while researching a magazine article about ranching in tiny Gooding, Idaho. From then on, every rural American town he visited seemed overrun with meth, while every major city seemed unaware even of its existence. He found few media mentions of the problem, and couldn’t contribute his own -- editors weren’t interested in his ideas for a book or magazine article. But when Reding found the epidemic near his hometown of St. Louis in show more 2004, in an area where he’d hunted ducks during so many autumns of his childhood, the problem became personal and he could no longer bear for it to be ignored.
The result is Methland, and it’s indeed a personal story. It’s not Reding’s story (although there are memoir-ish/family-history aspects to some passages), but rather the story of tiny Oelwein, Iowa and its residents, standing as a named example of thousands more meth-devastated small towns across the American Midwest.
Because Reding believes “…meth has always been less an agent of change and more a symptom of it,” he explores the epidemiology of methamphetamine abuse as a “socio-cultural cancer” by involving key participants -- Oelwein’s doctor, mayor, chief of police, county prosecutor, and meth addicts and dealers -- to document the economic, political, and social forces that conspired to nearly destroy the town and, more recently, perhaps redeem it.
This approach allows a fascinating story to develop -- a page-turner, even; conversationally written yet startling and disturbing -- that reminded me of a lite version of Michael Pollan’s (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) rise of industrial farming and Randy Shilts’s (And the Band Played On) epidemiology of AIDS. Recommended. show less
The result is Methland, and it’s indeed a personal story. It’s not Reding’s story (although there are memoir-ish/family-history aspects to some passages), but rather the story of tiny Oelwein, Iowa and its residents, standing as a named example of thousands more meth-devastated small towns across the American Midwest.
Because Reding believes “…meth has always been less an agent of change and more a symptom of it,” he explores the epidemiology of methamphetamine abuse as a “socio-cultural cancer” by involving key participants -- Oelwein’s doctor, mayor, chief of police, county prosecutor, and meth addicts and dealers -- to document the economic, political, and social forces that conspired to nearly destroy the town and, more recently, perhaps redeem it.
This approach allows a fascinating story to develop -- a page-turner, even; conversationally written yet startling and disturbing -- that reminded me of a lite version of Michael Pollan’s (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) rise of industrial farming and Randy Shilts’s (And the Band Played On) epidemiology of AIDS. Recommended. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.My parents live in rural Northeast Indiana, and from them I hear stories of how meth makes its presence known: how they see discarded two liter pop bottles of quick-fix batches littering the roadside; find propane tanks from larger batches while clearing brush around a lake; catch a whiff of the tell-tale ether stench while driving the country roads. Luckily, the human detritus of meth isn't a story they personally know: of families whose bonds are neglected and negated by addiction; jobs show more and lives lost; towns and counties stressed to the breaking point by a society in decline.
Nick Reding's "methland" makes that human element so frighteningly real; in a town quickly losing quality jobs, dependent on the increasingly-consolidated industries that remain, where methamphetamine production fills the economic and emotional gaps that remain. Reding brings together a host of elements in the meth trade, from the tweakers who've lost body parts to batches gone bad to the personalities and organizations who revolutionized meth sales. Paralleling this are the people who've decided to make a stand, such as the small-town mayor who takes a gamble to bring small business back to a shell of a town and the assistant district attorney who's racking up small-time convictions.
There are voyeuristic-worthy details that will appeal the addiction memoir crowd like the story the town-wide famous addict Roland Jarvis, but it's the moments when Reding's describing the larger elements controlling the playing field that deserve the most attention. This is where the book goes beyond describing the effects and goes after the causes, rooting out elements of government and big business who have ignored their complicity in an epidemic. Highly recommended reading for both those addicted to addiction memoirs and readers interested in social issues. show less
Nick Reding's "methland" makes that human element so frighteningly real; in a town quickly losing quality jobs, dependent on the increasingly-consolidated industries that remain, where methamphetamine production fills the economic and emotional gaps that remain. Reding brings together a host of elements in the meth trade, from the tweakers who've lost body parts to batches gone bad to the personalities and organizations who revolutionized meth sales. Paralleling this are the people who've decided to make a stand, such as the small-town mayor who takes a gamble to bring small business back to a shell of a town and the assistant district attorney who's racking up small-time convictions.
There are voyeuristic-worthy details that will appeal the addiction memoir crowd like the story the town-wide famous addict Roland Jarvis, but it's the moments when Reding's describing the larger elements controlling the playing field that deserve the most attention. This is where the book goes beyond describing the effects and goes after the causes, rooting out elements of government and big business who have ignored their complicity in an epidemic. Highly recommended reading for both those addicted to addiction memoirs and readers interested in social issues. show less
Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
Nick Reding's Methland captured my attention for personal reasons. Like Reding, I grew up in a small rural town (population 2000) in the Midwest. Upon adulthood, I moved to a large urban area in the Intermountain West, prompting my parents to worry incessantly about the dangers that would surround me in the big city. In their minds, it was only a matter of time before some drug-crazed maniac would break into my bedroom in the wee hours of show more the morning demanding money and worse.
As predicted, my weekly calls home to Mom and Dad began to include stories of rampant drug use and manufacture; the twist was that the locus of the activity was on their end of the line. Tales of former classmates who were now in rehab or jail were surprising (or not, depending on the classmate), but the real shock involved tales of several farmhouses that had blown sky high in the course of faulty meth production. What was going on?
I began paying attention to meth articles in the media. Several reliable sources quoted statistics confirming the fact that drug use, and meth use in particular, was more prevalent per capita in small towns than in cities. It was becoming the not-so-secret scourge of Heartland, USA. I initially attributed the problem to the mind-numbing lack of opportunity and alternative entertainment in rural towns. (Every time my mom mentioned yet another teenage pregnancy, I would jokingly suggest that they take up a collection for a roller rink, and fast.)
Nick Reding puts all of the pieces together in an excellent investigative book that exposes the complex and seemingly unstoppable forces behind the epidemic, while also revealing its human cost through individual stories that will make you hurt. If you grew up in a small town, you know these people.
The heartland's struggle with meth addiction is largely rooted in a cataclysmic shift from small farm and ranch operations to corporate-run centers of mega-production. Animals are raised in centralized factory pens, fattened in giant feed lots, and slaughtered in megalithic processing plants. Grain production has been centralized on huge corporate farms where food is planted, harvested, and processed under the supervision of agribusiness giants like Cargill and Monsanto. This shift has devastated the morale and pocketbook of rural America. Former independent entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of easily replaceable wage slaves. Local packing plants that used to pay their employees twenty dollars an hour plus health benefits have been absorbed by mega corporations that pay six dollars an hour and no benefits to a workforce that is powerless to demand anything better. Anyone who toured the Midwest farming country during its heyday, which peaked in the mid-1970's, would be shocked to witness the grinding poverty that permeates its small towns today.
The issue of poverty drives the meth market in multiple ways. The ingestion of meth can temporarily alleviate the depression and hopelessness of a single mother who just completed a double shift slitting chicken bellies at the local Tyson plant. The production of meth in rural basements, a relatively simple but risky endeavor, is a cottage industry that offers low startup costs and large returns to those meth cooks who manage to avoid arrest or incineration. Poverty and lack of decent employment tend to drive rural youths to the West coast and California, where their habit eventually hooks them up with big-time distributors who in turn employ them to funnel meth back to their home town in return for a cut of the cash and goods.
To make matters worse, large processing plants and pig farm factories actively solicit Mexican citizens to cross the border and work for subsistence wages ("First 6 months of housing provided free!"). Although the vast majority of these workers are husbands and fathers desperate to provide a higher standard of living for their families, a fraction of this workforce is inevitably involved in siphoning drugs from Mexico into Small Town, USA.
Corporate culpability doesn't end with agribusiness. Big Pharma has used its massive economic power and lobbying skills to fight meth regulation at every turn. Why waste a relatively modest sum of money adding an element to cold pills that will render them useless for meth making when only half of that sum can "convince" Congress to avoid requiring the additive at all? After all, they argue, they make a legal product for a legal purpose. Why should they have to spend one penny because some societal misfit may personally choose to commit a criminal act? Why indeed.
Ironically, one of the final reasons for meth's prevalence in the heartland is the work ethic of its people. Most drugs don't help work performance. Mention "severe drug addict" and most people envision a lethargic, unemployed couch surfer who lives off friends and relatives until they finally throw him/her out. In contrast, meth (at least initially) boosts concentration and energy, allowing the user to work two and three jobs, performing for weeks with minimal sleep until the inevitable crash. Small town rural people who pride themselves on hard work and self-sufficiency often succumb to meth as a temporary way to "hold it all together" while they work through a financial crisis (divorce, sick child, loss of benefits) that requires them to work long hours without relief. Temporary use is seldom temporary for long.
I've laid out the general framework of Nick Reding's book, but the real power of his work comes from personal interviews and the hard-to-hear stories of working people who have been destroyed directly or indirectly by the meth trade. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand meth addiction and, more importantly, the largely unreported societal malaise that is sapping the life from rural America. show less
Nick Reding's Methland captured my attention for personal reasons. Like Reding, I grew up in a small rural town (population 2000) in the Midwest. Upon adulthood, I moved to a large urban area in the Intermountain West, prompting my parents to worry incessantly about the dangers that would surround me in the big city. In their minds, it was only a matter of time before some drug-crazed maniac would break into my bedroom in the wee hours of show more the morning demanding money and worse.
As predicted, my weekly calls home to Mom and Dad began to include stories of rampant drug use and manufacture; the twist was that the locus of the activity was on their end of the line. Tales of former classmates who were now in rehab or jail were surprising (or not, depending on the classmate), but the real shock involved tales of several farmhouses that had blown sky high in the course of faulty meth production. What was going on?
I began paying attention to meth articles in the media. Several reliable sources quoted statistics confirming the fact that drug use, and meth use in particular, was more prevalent per capita in small towns than in cities. It was becoming the not-so-secret scourge of Heartland, USA. I initially attributed the problem to the mind-numbing lack of opportunity and alternative entertainment in rural towns. (Every time my mom mentioned yet another teenage pregnancy, I would jokingly suggest that they take up a collection for a roller rink, and fast.)
Nick Reding puts all of the pieces together in an excellent investigative book that exposes the complex and seemingly unstoppable forces behind the epidemic, while also revealing its human cost through individual stories that will make you hurt. If you grew up in a small town, you know these people.
The heartland's struggle with meth addiction is largely rooted in a cataclysmic shift from small farm and ranch operations to corporate-run centers of mega-production. Animals are raised in centralized factory pens, fattened in giant feed lots, and slaughtered in megalithic processing plants. Grain production has been centralized on huge corporate farms where food is planted, harvested, and processed under the supervision of agribusiness giants like Cargill and Monsanto. This shift has devastated the morale and pocketbook of rural America. Former independent entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of easily replaceable wage slaves. Local packing plants that used to pay their employees twenty dollars an hour plus health benefits have been absorbed by mega corporations that pay six dollars an hour and no benefits to a workforce that is powerless to demand anything better. Anyone who toured the Midwest farming country during its heyday, which peaked in the mid-1970's, would be shocked to witness the grinding poverty that permeates its small towns today.
The issue of poverty drives the meth market in multiple ways. The ingestion of meth can temporarily alleviate the depression and hopelessness of a single mother who just completed a double shift slitting chicken bellies at the local Tyson plant. The production of meth in rural basements, a relatively simple but risky endeavor, is a cottage industry that offers low startup costs and large returns to those meth cooks who manage to avoid arrest or incineration. Poverty and lack of decent employment tend to drive rural youths to the West coast and California, where their habit eventually hooks them up with big-time distributors who in turn employ them to funnel meth back to their home town in return for a cut of the cash and goods.
To make matters worse, large processing plants and pig farm factories actively solicit Mexican citizens to cross the border and work for subsistence wages ("First 6 months of housing provided free!"). Although the vast majority of these workers are husbands and fathers desperate to provide a higher standard of living for their families, a fraction of this workforce is inevitably involved in siphoning drugs from Mexico into Small Town, USA.
Corporate culpability doesn't end with agribusiness. Big Pharma has used its massive economic power and lobbying skills to fight meth regulation at every turn. Why waste a relatively modest sum of money adding an element to cold pills that will render them useless for meth making when only half of that sum can "convince" Congress to avoid requiring the additive at all? After all, they argue, they make a legal product for a legal purpose. Why should they have to spend one penny because some societal misfit may personally choose to commit a criminal act? Why indeed.
Ironically, one of the final reasons for meth's prevalence in the heartland is the work ethic of its people. Most drugs don't help work performance. Mention "severe drug addict" and most people envision a lethargic, unemployed couch surfer who lives off friends and relatives until they finally throw him/her out. In contrast, meth (at least initially) boosts concentration and energy, allowing the user to work two and three jobs, performing for weeks with minimal sleep until the inevitable crash. Small town rural people who pride themselves on hard work and self-sufficiency often succumb to meth as a temporary way to "hold it all together" while they work through a financial crisis (divorce, sick child, loss of benefits) that requires them to work long hours without relief. Temporary use is seldom temporary for long.
I've laid out the general framework of Nick Reding's book, but the real power of his work comes from personal interviews and the hard-to-hear stories of working people who have been destroyed directly or indirectly by the meth trade. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand meth addiction and, more importantly, the largely unreported societal malaise that is sapping the life from rural America. show less
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