I Know Your Kind

Starred review from June 26, 2017
Brewer descends the rabbit hole of opioid addiction and its cycles of despair in his penetrating debut. He covers the gamut of experiences from withdrawal to rehab to relapse, and the idle helplessness of watching friends and family succumb to the disease. Brewer’s expert descriptions of his hometown of Oceana, W.Va., (nicknamed “Oxyana” for the drug whose use has spread there) evoke a sinister, deathly presence, with “fog-strangled mornings” and “rain choking the throats of smokestacks,” a landscape Brewer penetratingly connects to the addict’s brain. “Smog from the steam engine/ of dementia tints your hair,” Brewer writes, “your synapses scatter// in the late December forest of your mind.” The stunning and spare “Resolution” captures the decisive moment of choosing sobriety, its pathos and clarity so strong it is compared to the invention of the window, “All that light bursting in.” Brewer’s creative syntax and line breaks bolster his dark and vivid imagery, especially in a few downright unforgettable instances. “Oxyana” is both a real place and a fantastical mental prison, a symbol for addiction with religious and mythological references scattered throughout. Anyone familiar with addiction will recognize Oxyana’s metaphorical scenery in all its absurd and devastating iterations. Despair-inducingly relevant as opioid deaths soar across America, Brewer’s depiction of his triumph over his “shrieking private want” is a revelation.

July 1, 2017

Brewer opens this pointedly forthright debut collection with an epigraph explaining that the town of Oceana, WV, was nicknamed Oxyana for its high incidence of OxyContin abuse, and the name surfaces throughout this chronicle of addiction and social consequence. "Bars, pool halls, / neighbors turn me away, but not churches" says one speaker unpityingly (he's actually looking for air conditioning) and, after an overdose, "Oblivion is liberating." Elsewhere, a brother shuts the door on a user ("You can't come here anymore, not like this") and a man comes to after being mugged by an addict with rain in his face "clear as gin." The tragedy keeps coming--the epigraph further explains that heroin has replaced OxyContin as the drug of choice, with West Virginia now claiming the highest fatal overdose rate in America. But the tone is less cri de coeur than calm, determined observation. VERDICT Though occasionally one wants more edge, this is a thoughtful collection that can be approached by all readers.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.