Dopesick & Invisible: Reporting American Crises with Beth Macy & Andrea Elliott

The Bernstein Award–winning author of Invisible Child and the author of Dopesick and its new follow-up, Raising Lazarus, discuss character-driven journalism and navigating close relationships with the people they cover.

Andrea Elliott won the 2022 New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. Beth Macy was a finalist for the same award in 2019. Their most recent books are intimate and personal pieces of reporting that enmeshed both writers in the lives of their subjects. In Invisible Child, Elliott follows eight years in the life of Dasani and her family, who navigate poverty, homelessness, drug use, racism, violence, and hunger in New York’s new gilded age. Macy’s Raising Lazarus, the follow-up to her Hulu-adapted Dopesick, returns to the frontiers of the opioid epidemic and overdose crisis to witness the devastating personal costs that one-third of America’s families are forced to shoulder. They speak with the Library’s Aidan Flax-Clark.

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To join the livestream | A livestream of this event will be available on the NYPL event page. To receive an email reminder shortly in advance of the event, please be sure to register!

GET THE BOOK

Borrow:

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  • Invisible Child, by Andrea Elliott
  
  
  • Raising Lazarus, by Beth Macy
  
  
  • Get them on our E-Book app: SimplyE
  
  
  
  

Purchase from The Library Shop (proceeds benefit NYPL):

• 
  
  
  
  • Invisible Child, by Andrea Elliott
  
  
  • Raising Lazarus, by Beth Macy
  
  
  • Dopesick, by Beth Macy
  
  
  
  

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Beth Macy is a Virginia-based journalist with three decades of experience and an award-winning author of three New York Times bestselling books: Factory Man, Truevine, and Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America. Her first book, Factory Man, won a J. Anthony Lukas Prize, and Dopesick was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal, won the L.A. Times Book Prize for Science and Technology, and was described as a “masterwork of narrative nonfiction” by The New York Times. Her new book is Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis.

Andrea Elliott  is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who has documented the lives of poor Americans, Muslim immigrants, and other people on the margins of power. She is an investigative reporter for The New York Times and the author of Invisible Child, published by Random House, which won The New York Public Library's 2022 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, as well as the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. She is also the recipient of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, a George Polk award, an Overseas Press Club award and was awarded a 2007 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. 

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ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. A visual navigation guide is available here.

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. Media used over the course of the conversation will be accompanied by alt text and/or audio description. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

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About the Bernstein Award:  For the past 35 years, The New York Public Library has selected five finalist books for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. The Bernstein Award recognizes works written by working journalists that raise awareness about current events or issues of global or national significance.

This program is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

Beth Macy © Josh Meltzer

Andrea Elliott © Nina Subin