Title: Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
Author: Nick Reding
Genre: Narrative nonfiction
Year: 2009
Acquired: Bought
Rating: 
Review: Methland is an almost perfect example of the kind of narrative nonfiction that I love to read. In fact, if I ever have someone come up and ask me, “What is narrative nonfiction?” I’m probably just going to shove Methland into their hands and refuse to discuss the topic further until they take the time to read the book. Watch out, people.
Methland is, as the title suggests, the story of methamphetamine in the United States as seen through the struggle of one small town, Oelwein, Iowa. Home to just over 6,000 people, Oelwein is what you might consider a typical small town in rural America — a short main street that has almost as many bars as there are churches that relies on farming and small businesses to survive. But underneath the facade lies the fact that methamphetamine, locally manufactured or shipped in from major Mexican drug cartels, is a problem for many local residents.
When he first started working on the book, Reding thought he would be writing a “large-scale true crime story” about meth. In actuality, Reding found that meth is better described as “a sociological cancer,” spreading through the systems of small town after small town. As one of the protagonists of Methland explains,
As with the diseases, meth’s particular danger lay in its ability to metastasize throughout the body, in this case the body politic, and to weaken the social fabric of a place, be it a region, a town, a neighborhood, or a home. Just as brain cancer often spread to the lungs, said Clay, meth often spread between classes, families and friends. Meth’s associated rigors affect the school, the police, the mayor, the hospital, and the town businesses. As a result, … there is a king of collective low self-esteem that sets in once a town’s culture must react solely to a singular — and singularly negative — stimulus.
At the same time, the book is almost equally about the decline of rural America and why meth was able to find a foothold in that part of the country in the first place. As Reding notes, “the real story is as much about the death of a way of life as it is about the birth of a drug.”
That last sentence expresses much of what I loved about this book and what makes it great narrative nonfiction. The narrative arc of Olewin’s battle with methamphetamine from 2005 to 2007 serves as a sort of branch to hold all sorts of extra information — the impact Big Agriculture has had on rural America, the way U.S. drug policy has impacted the international meth trade, the totally insane ways people will manufacture meth (and the awful, awful things meth does to the body). The story of meth is fascinating, but the part that keeps the book moving along is the often gruesome, terrifying, and emotionally meaningful story of how the people of Oelwein, led by a focused an local mayor, doctor and prosecutor, took on meth (and the other serious social and economic threats to their town) to try and save their community.
Obviously, my love of this book is helped by the fact that I live in a small town much like Oelwein, and meth has been and continues to be a problem in the community. Like Oelwein, the meth problem is being addressed, but it’s still a dark part of the town’s story. But I really don’t think you have to have any knowledge or love of small town life to find the story Reding is telling both compelling and relevant today.
Despite (or perhaps because of) it’s grim subject and occasionally graphic descriptions of the damage meth can do (there’s literal face-melting, people, which is just to horrifying to imagine), Methland is a book that’s difficult to put down and even more difficult not to gush about. This one comes highly, highly recommended.
Other Reviews: Citizen Reader | A Book A Week | Open Mind, Insert Book |
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Great review. A garage just around the corner from my parents’ house once exploded and the gossip was that it was a meth lab. and this is not a ‘bad’ part of town. I am most interested in this book and more so now that you say it is excellent ‘narrative NF’.
Around here, every time there’s a fire/house explosion, there’s speculation that it was a meth lab. It’s not totally inconceivable, given that there have been some meth arrests lately. It really is good narrative nonfiction — the structure, in particular, is really stellar (I think, anyway).
Great review! I have this book and want to read it a lot. It’s always at the top of my TBR pile but keeps getting pushed off. Growing up in Iowa, meth is always a subject around her and I’ve driven by quite a few meth labs. I’ll have to keep trying to read this!
Oh, for sure, meth is a big problem in Iowa too. I suspect I’ve gone by many, many meth labs, but I’m too oblivious to know that, I think. I hope you get a chance to read it (the parts about small town life rang really true to me, and I think they would for you too).
You have me sold. Great review!
This book has been on my TBR list, and your review just pushed it to the top! Thanks!
This sounds disturbing and compelling all at the same time. It sounds like a book that would fascinate me. I would probably drive everyone crazy while I read it.
I drove the boyfriend nuts, particularly reading passages about what meth does to your body and what meth is made out of. Those parts were so nutty to me. It’s terrible.
Wonderful review! I got curious about this topic after hearing of a documentary – (The World’s Most Dangerous Drug), so I’ll be checking this one out as well.
Interesting! I want to learn more, so I’m going to look for that documentary. Thanks for the mention!
This sounds really good! Meth is the one drug I remember as a kid my mother waging a concerted propaganda battle against. She didn’t like other drugs but she didn’t ever employ, like, scare tactics? But I remember her reading an article about meth addicts and showing the face-melt pictures to me and saying “See this? This is what happens when you use meth! Never you ever do that unless you want your face to look like THIS. If you have to use a drug IT MUST NOT BE METH.”
Meth is a truly terrible drug. I mean, it’s totally toxic and addictive and cheap. You couldn’t really come up with anything worse, I don’t think. I can see a mom going on a war against meth, for sure 🙂
I’m going to pick up this book now. I enjoy reading about books like this that I may have missed when they were first released, and to me there’s nothing better than narrative non-fiction. I know nothing about the culture of Meth, and from your review, it sounds fascinating, especially if the author ties it to its effect on rural America.
I missed this one too. I’m glad another blogger brought it to my attention. What fascinated me, and what I don’t think made it into the review, was the fact that for a long time meth was a legal drug, and the working conditions of Big Ag in rural America made it a drug that, in a weird way, made sense to take to work more hours and earn more money.
Whoa! Face burning?
This sounds like a fascinating read. Drugs are such a controversial topic, I know some people who believe almost all, especially weed, should be legalized, but it’s hard to agree with that after reading drugs’ effect on society.