Author Talk: Brian Carr's "Opioid, Indiana"

Join Tomorrow Bookstore for an author conversation with Brian Allen Carr on his novel, Opioid, Indiana with moderator Kristine Gale .

About Opioid, Indiana:

"Full of gorgeous language and wild insights."--Nick Flynn

Set in the beleaguered heart of Indiana's opioid crisis, Brian Allen Carr's timely and tender novel about a teen struggling to find his place in the world--and come up with $800 rent--is at once a moving rumination on the hopeful power of story and a harrowing insight into modern America. It is a book you won't soon forget.Seventeen-year-old Riggle is living in rural Indiana with his uncle and uncle's girlfriend after the death of his parents. Now his uncle is missing, probably on a drug binge. It's Monday, and $800 in rent is due Friday. Riggle, who's been suspended from school, has to either find his uncle or get the money together himself. His mission exposes him to a motley group of Opioid locals--encounters by turns perplexing, harrowing, and heartening.With empathy and insight, Carr explores what it's like to be a high school kid in the age of Trump--a time of economic inequality, addiction, Confederate flags, and mass shootings. Through the voice of its unforgettable protagonist--charismatic, confused, searching, by turns cynical and naïve, wise and impulsive--Opioid, Indiana pierces to the heart of our moment.

"Tragically funny, Opioid, Indiana is a dynamite explosion of a book, busting through our misconceptions about small towns to reveal the secret holiness in the life of a teenage boy. It'll blow up your brain."
--Juliet Escoria, author of Juliet the Maniac

"Opioid, Indiana shot straight through me and left pieces of itself in my heart and my gut. It's like Catcher in the Rye but even better. A smart, funny, sweet-sad book with a totally irresistible narrator."
--Mesha Maren, author of Sugar Run

About Brian Allen Carr:

Brian Allen Carr lives in Indiana. He is the author of the novel Sip, along with several novellas and story collections. He is the winner of a Wonderland Book Award and a Texas Observer Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Granta, Ninth Letter, Hobart, Boulevard and other publications.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Tomorrow Bookstore, 882 Massachusetts Avenue, Indianapolis, United States