MILTON, MA – MARCH 4, 2022 – Please join the Forbes House Museum for an author talk on Thursday, March 24 at 7 p.m. at Pierce Middle School, 451 Central Avenue in Milton, featuring Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family Dynasty, and Evan Hughes, author of The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup.
Keefe and Hughes will discuss their stories of greed, deception, excess and legal battles in the pharmaceutical industry. Keefe’s book follows the rise and fall of the Sacklers at the helm of Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, while Hughes’s book documents a similar trajectory by entrepreneur John Kapoor, founder of Insys Therapeutics and maker of Subsys. The books reveal how OxyContin and Subsys, opiods at the center of the opioid epidemic, were aggressively and deceitfully marketed, and are directly linked to today’s opioid epidemic. Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the New York Times bestseller, Say Nothing. Hughes is a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, GQ, New York, Wired, and The New York Review of Books, and author of Literary Brooklyn.
Patrick Radden Keefe will discuss his book and Purdue Pharma’s role in the opioid epidemic on March 24. Photo by Philip Montgomery
“We’re thrilled to welcome both Keefe and Hughes to the same stage. With the depth of knowledge they have about the opioid epidemic and the pharmaceutical industry, their conversation promises to be as engaging and thought-provoking as their respective books,” says the museum’s executive director Heidi Vaughan.
Tickets are $25 per person, or $20 for museum members, and are available through the
museum’s website, www.forbeshousemuseum.org/opium-exhibition. Both books will be available for purchase at the Pierce Middle School auditorium on March 24 and at the museum.
This author talk is one of a series of programs complementing the upcoming exhibition Opium: The Business of Addiction, a collaboration between the Forbes House Museum, the Milton Coalition, and the Milton Public Library. Opening April 27, 2022, the exhibition tells the story of the Forbes family’s involvement in the opium trade, the trade’s links to the current opioid epidemic, and its lasting impact on US-Sino relations, and will be on view at both the museum and the library.
This program was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IGSM-249469-OMS-21). Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the program do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
For information about museum exhibits, tours and programming, call 617-696-1815 or visit www.forbeshousemuseum.org. Information about IMLS awards is available at www.imls.gov.
About the Forbes House Museum:
Inspired by the Forbes family legacy of entrepreneurship, social action and philanthropy, the Forbes House Museum fosters discourse around civic engagement and cultural awareness. Built in 1833, the Greek Revival home at 215 Adams Street in Milton has been a museum since 1964 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966.
About the Institute of Museum and Library Services:
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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