The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty: Empire of Pain

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA New York Times Editors' Choice/Staff PickShortlisted for the 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction’s Winner of Winners AwardWinner of the 2021 Baillie Gilford Prize for Non-fiction2021 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for non-fiction2022 J. Anthony Lucas Book Prize finalistNamed one of the best books of 2021 by Washington Post • Financial Times • The New York Times • The Globe and Mail • NPR • Telegraph • The Times • TIME • Smithsonian Magazine • Fortune • Town & Country • The Guardian • Science News • Slate • The Economist • Boston Globe • Entertainment Weekly • Amazon • New York Public Library"In Empire of Pain, Keefe sets out to do something different, tracing the fortunes of the family dynasty at the center of it all. What starts out as a humble origin story in 1913 . . . becomes an engrossing (and frequently enraging) tale of striving, secrecy and self-delusion. . . . Keefe nimbly guides us through the thicket of family intrigues and betrayals. . . . Even when detailing the most sordid episodes, Keefe's narrative voice is calm and admirably restrained, allowing his prodigious reporting to speak for itself. His portrait of the family is all the more damning for its stark lucidity." —The New York Times"Patrick Radden Keefe has a knack for getting inside a story. Big, sweeping stories, the ones that help us understand the world we live in and the issues we face. He does it not by weighing us down with facts, but by incorporating them into a compelling narrative that focuses on the people who live the stories. He did it in his previous book Say Nothing . . . and he does it in his newest book, Empire of Pain, taking a story with deep political and social ramifications and getting to its heart by examining the lives and motives of the family at the centre of the OxyContin crisis." —Toronto Star"Patrick Radden Keefe, one of the top narrative nonfiction authors of his generation, offers an engrossing and deeply reported book about the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma. . . . Empire of Pain is focused on the wildly rich, ambitious and cutthroat family that built its empire first on medical advertising and later on painkillers. In his hands, their story becomes a great American morality tale about unvarnished greed dressed in ostentatious philanthropy." —TIME "History repeats itself and disaster ensues in this sweeping saga of the rise and fall of the family behind OxyContin. . . . It's an altogether damning portrait . . . richly detailed and vividly written. Readers will be outraged and enthralled in equal measure." —Publishers Weekly, starred review"[A] richly researched account of the Sackler pharmaceutical dynasty, agents of the opioid-addiction epidemic that plagues us today. . . . Excellent. . . . Keefe turns up plenty of answers. . . . Of particular interest is the book-closing account of the Sacklers' legal efforts to intimidate the author as he tried to make his way through the 'fog of collective denial' that shrouded them. A definitive, damning, urgent tale of overweening avarice at tremendous cost to society." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review"Meticulously reported." —NPR"A fascinating and infuriating firecracker of a story about greed, privilege, hypocrisy and the corruption of the American dream." —TIME Magazine"Patrick Radden Keefe is one of the best nonfiction and investigative journalists working right now. . . . Keefe's research process and narrative style keeps the reader turning the page rapidly, reading more like a whodunit (even if we know who did it) than a family portrait or a profile of a pharmaceutical company." —Fortune"This extensive takedown of the Sacklers . . . may not present as accessible, but Keefe has an aptitude for spinning complex investigations into page-turning thrillers. Empire lives out the promises inherent in the word exposé; it's not a book so much as a rallying cry for the reading masses." —Entertainment Weekly"New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe's new book Empire of Pain . . . argue[s] compellingly that the Sackler family fortune—which funded dozens of family-branded museum wings, education centers and schools—was built through the aggressive over-promotion of Oxycontin and concealment of its often-deadly consequences." —CNN"Put simply, this book will make your blood boil. . . . A devastating portrait of a family consumed by greed and unwilling to take the slightest responsibility or show the least sympathy for what it wrought. . . . A highly readable and disturbing narrative." —The New York Times Book Review"Deeply researched and beautifully written." —Maclean's"[An] extraordinary, excoriating examination of the Sackler family's involvement in the origins of the opioid crisis. . . . [Empire of Pain] goes deep into the origin story of the family, digging into the ethic (or lack thereof) that drove their business interests and their drive to burnish their dubious reputation with lavish donations and bequests. The family may still refuse to acknowledge their role in the crisis that has led to the death of more than half a million Americans, but this book is an unforgiving and essential indictment." —Vogue"An air-tight indictment of the family behind the opioid crisis. . . . [An] impressive exposé." —The Los Angeles Times"The gifted storyteller and investigative journalist behind Say Nothing turns his attention to the Sackler family and its association with the potentially addictive pain medication OxyContin. Keefe marshals a large pile of evidence . . . and deploys it with prosecutorial precision. The book also benefits from his talent for capturing personalities, which is no small thing given that the Sacklers didn't provide access." —The Washington Post"The Sacklers' desire for public obscurity pulses through Empire of Pain. . . . [This book], in its unraveling of the Sacklers' self-mythology, functions as a record of the damage it might inflict." —Vanity Fair"Patrick Radden Keefe's Empire of Pain is another dizzying, provocative investigation. . . . Keefe has a way of making the inaccessible incredibly digestible, of morphing complex stories into page-turning thrillers, and he's done it again with Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. The behemoth is a scathing—but meticulously reported—takedown of the extended family behind OxyContin, widely believed to be at the root cause of our nation's opioid crisis. It's equal parts juicy society gossip and historical record of how they built their dynasty and eventually pushed Oxy onto the market. . . . It lives out every promise inherent in the word exposé." —Entertainment Weekly"Empire of Pain reads like a real-life thriller, a page-turner, a deeply shocking dissection of avarice and calculated callousness. Informed by recently released court documents, internal emails and memos, plus 200 interviews with those close to the family, Radden Keefe's epic investigation lifts the veil of secrecy over the billionaire Sackler clan. We knew some of this story; it turns out we didn't know the half of it. . . . The greedy, shameless Sacklers have not lost their personal wealth. But Radden Keefe has, word by forensic word, dismantled what mattered most to them: their reputation. Many of the grand buildings have already dropped the tainted name. This book should finish the job. Exhaustively researched and written with grace and gravity, Empire of Pain unpeels a most terrible American scandal. You feel almost guilty for enjoying it so much." —The Times (UK)"Empire of Pain has a propulsive pace that often reads like a thriller. Even when reporting on things such as how Purdue manipulated patent laws so it could keep generic imitations off the market, [Keefe] cuts through the fog with a clear narrative. . . . Keefe also fills the book with startling stats about opioid addiction and overdose deaths and stark anecdotes that detail individuals or communities devastated by the crisis." —Calgary Herald"Riveting. . . . A book as readable as any John Grisham thriller. . . . An absorbing story of how great wealth can corrupt not only its owners, but also can bend the law and democratic institutions to its will." —Winnipeg Free Press"A true tragedy in multiple acts. . . . The story of a family that lost its moorings and its morals. . . . Written with novelistic family-dynasty and family-dynamic sweep, Empire of Pain is a pharmaceutical Forsyte Saga, a book that in its way is addictive, with a page-turning forward momentum." —The Boston Globe"Patrick Radden Keefe delivers a damning account of Purdue Pharma, OxyContin and a family that grew rich. . . . Keefe methodically and meticulously chronicles this tale of woe and crisis, indifference and corruption. . . . A chilling and mesmerising read." —The Guardian"Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe's new history of the Sackler clan, does not locate a moral conscience anywhere in the family at all. . . . [Empire of Pain] will undo decades of philanthropic effort to link the Sackler name with public good. . . . A precise chronicler . . . Keefe has accomplished . . . what attorneys have been trying to do for over a decade. He forces the [Sackler] family into the light." —New York Magazine "A gripping and thorough investigation of the saga of the Sackler dynasty and the addictive painkiller OxyContin." —Financial Times"Few books pull off the twin feats of Patrick Radden Keefe's devastating portrait of the pharmaceutical dynasty whose runaway invention, OxyContin, tipped off America's opioid crisis. First, the book is a sweeping expose that provides startling new insight into a national tragedy. Then, perhaps more impressively, it's a carefully told thriller of familial ambition and dysfunction. This is a drama worthy of a novel: A story of avarice and of hubris and of a vast fortune made in the merging of medicine and marketing. For decades, the billionaire Sacklers worked hard to keep all of this secret—and to keep their name off the family business. Keefe shows us exactly why." —GQ"Patrick Radden Keefe's body of work doesn't seem, at first glance, the most accessible—his previous novel investigated the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and his most recent behemoth is a scathing (and meticulously reported) takedown of the extended family behind OxyContin and the root causes of the opioid crisis. But Keefe has a way of making the inaccessible incredibly digestible, of morphing complex stories into page-turning thrillers, and Empire of Pain lives out every promise inherent in the word exposé. If you're lucky enough not to have been personally touched by the opioid epidemic, the book feels like required empathy reading; if you're less fortunate, let it be a rallying cry." —Entertainment Weekly"Indefatigable investigative journalist Keefe crafts a page-turning corporate biography and jaw-dropping condemnation of the Sacklers' amoral disregard for anything save the acquisition of power, privilege, and influence. In Keefe's expert hands, the Sackler family saga becomes an enraging exposé of what happens when utter devotion to the accumulation of wealth is paired with an unscrupulous disregard for human health." —Booklist"Excellent. . . . Sifting through the reams of evidence unearthed by court proceedings, Mr. Keefe shows how callous some of the remaining Sacklers have been over the destruction wrought around them—blaming the problem on immoral addicts rather than the drug, and regarding themselves as victims of a media witch-hunt. Shiftless third-generation types are rendered with evident loathing, skilfully skewered by their own words in court or by Mr. Keefe’s sources." —The Economist"Explosive. . . . An attempt to . . . hold the [Sackler] family accountable in a way that nobody has quite done before, by telling its story as the saga of a dynasty driven by arrogance, avarice and indifference to mass suffering. . . . Keefe marshals a large pile of evidence and deploys it with prosecutorial precision. Keefe is a gifted storyteller who excels at capturing personalities." —The Washington Post"[A] devastating exposé on the family behind the opioid crisis." —Esquire "Empire of Pain is an attentive history of the family, and gathers up evidence of how the Sacklers were aware of the ways in which OxyContin drove the opioid-abuse epidemic—how, in fact, they even marketed the drug to capitalise on it. . . . Keefe's narrative is so lush with details that only in the chinks do we spot the story behind the story: the rotting structure of American healthcare that almost wills disasters into being. . . . To read Empire of Pain is to wonder if even the Sacklers are just a distraction from the real problems. Purdue may not be around any more, but the system that abetted it survives unchallenged." —The Guardian"Masterfully damning. . . . If you are someone who engages in this kind of sneaky conduct, the last person you want reporting on you is Keefe. Although the material in Empire of Pain is more complex and less action-packed than the crimes and terrorism of Say Nothing, the narrative is just as involving. Keefe has a knack for crafting lucid, readable descriptions of the sort of arcane business arrangements the Sacklers favored. He is also indefatigable." —Slate"Empire of Pain [is] a stunning new look at the opioid crisis . . . a riveting story and a compelling argument. Millions of words have been written about the opioid crisis and how to cope with it. But its history has mostly been a side note. That history is the focus of Patrick Radden Keefe's astounding new book, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. Not only does he detail exactly how the opioid crisis began and grew—it was no accident—he drags into the spotlight one of the most secretive, wealthy and powerful families in corporate America and holds them to account. . . . Keefe brings the receipts." —Tampa Bay Times"Patrick Radden Keefe's new book provides the fullest accounting so far of Purdue Pharma's role in the opioid crisis. . . .  Empire of Pain is ultimately a multigenerational tale of an American dynasty and its rocky tumble from the peaks of high society to the status of social pariah . . . an important record of private greed facilitated by a corrupted government." —The New Republic"Through the lens of three brothers and their multiple heirs, Patrick Radden Keefe . . . tells a sordid story of American capitalism, the amorality of big law firms and corporations, the corruption of wealth and much more." —The Sydney Morning Herald"An elegantly written investigative narrative, Empire of Pain is a portrait of greed, corruption and reputation laundering." —Financial Times"This superb exposé points the finger of blame squarely at one family: the Sacklers. . . . The strength of Patrick Radden Keefe's forensic dissection, based on dozens of interviews and the mountain of documents from court cases, is to turn a harsh spotlight on that secretive family who fostered the use of potent opioids for minor ailments, made a fortune and fuelled the addiction catastrophe. . . . On one level, this is a terrific dynastic tale that begins with poor immigrants in Brooklyn and ends with entitled billionaires three generations later who whine about being social lepers. . . .  But Empire of Pain is also a brutal indictment of the bungling authorities who sanctioned their behaviour, the vulture-like lawyers and lobbyists who helped fend off challenges to stop them, the gullible doctors who fell for their patter and blue chip advisers such as McKinsey, blinkered by greed as they devised new tactics to flog pills. . . . Powerful journalism." —The Spectator (UK)"Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America's second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes." —The 2021 Baillie Gilford Prize for Non-Fiction jury