Author Kingsolver: Appalachia Won't Recover in My Lifetime

Barbara Kingsolver wrote about the horror visited upon Appalachia by opioid addiction in her Pulitzer-winning novel Demon Copperhead. Now, she has written the introduction to a unique New York Times opinion piece on the subject. Its headline sums things up: "The opioid crisis never ended," it declares. "It was inherited by the children." The interactive story features photos from documentary photographer Tamara Reynolds, who spent a year visiting Clarksburg, West Virginia, to document the ongoing toll. Susannah Meadows reported and wrote the accompanying text.

Clarksburg pediatrician Brian Policano is among those in the photographs, and he shares the disturbing revelation that drugs change the cries of babies. "It's a cry that you very quickly learn is a cry of pain," he says. Yes, Big Pharma has been forced to make changes in how it markets and sells opioids because of lawsuits, but "please do not think this means justice has been served," writes Kingsolver. "If you came to visit me, I could walk you down our country roads and point out all the houses where grandparents are raising little ones whose parents are incarcerated, sick or dead of addiction. The road to recovery here will be longer than my lifetime." Check out the feature here.