Brett Ann Stanciu - Unstitched : My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal

Unstitched is riveting, compassionate, topical, and one of the best books Ive read this year. Stanciu, in beautiful prose, takes on the impact of the opioid epidemic on a small Vermont town with the gusto and suspense of a fine mystery novel, and the empathy that only a truly fine observer of the human condition could muster. Highly recommended.

Thomas Christopher Greene, author of The Perfect Liar

The shift in scale throughout Unstitched from a tiny Vermont library, from one persons annoyance with one addicts break-ins, to the global scope of the opioid epidemic is gut-wrenching. In a memoir that is generous and capacious at the same time that it is intimate, difficult, and finely wrought, readers will be carried by this deftly woven investigation into addiction in a small town. I didnt want to read this book, given my own familys loss, and then I couldnt put it down. Unstitched is the book about addiction that everyone needs to read if we are ever to understand what needs to be done.

Kerrin McCadden, author of Keep This To Yourself

Unstitched should be mandatory reading. It is a heartbreaking, raw, tender and revelatory look at addiction and its pervasive grip on ourselves, our families, our communities, and our rural towns. This book undid me as I read taking me into the heart of suffering, revealing my own habits, biases and fears and then it gathered those pieces together and braided them into something new: a vision of hope, connection, possibility and healing for us all.

Robin MacArthur, author of Heart Spring Mountain and Half Wild

While Unstitched begins as a true crime memoir set in an idyllic small Vermont town, soon it explodes into an exploration about the ugliness of poverty, the ravages of drug addiction as Stanciu studies our nations and her own addiction crises. Stanciu shines a light on the things we dont want to see: drug and alcohol abuse spread throughout our hometowns, including her own. Stancius beautiful light, and stunning writing, transforms those who are considered once a junkie, always a junkie, into our friends and neighbors where recovery is possible and we are alike.

Sean Prentiss, author of Finding Abbey and Crosscut: Poems

With this thoughtful and thought-provoking book, Brett Stanciu shines a light on the twin tragedies of addiction and suicide that have infiltrated every family in America, even more so during the pandemicAddiction, and all the dark aspects associated with it, is a subject Id like to ignore. But ignoring it isnt going to help or make it go away, and Bretts book has led me to re-examine what I could do to be part of the solution. This book may provide a lifeline to someone in need, and might begin a conversation that saves a life.

Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, author of As Long As There Are Mountains and The Canada Geese Quilt

Beautifully crafted and researched, this book is for everyone, whether youve known the secret pain of addiction in your family or seen it ravaging your community. A luminous act of compassion and courage.

Diana Whitney, author of You Dont Have to Be Everything

With compassion, curiosity, and a fine eye for detail, Brett Ann Stanciu takes us on an unforgettable journey into the world of addiction and recovery in rural Vermont. The result is a beautiful and affecting story about the resilience of spirit and of community, at precisely the time we most need an abundance of both.

Ben Hewitt, author of The Town That Food Saved and Homegrown

I took a sobering read through this book because it focuses a lot on community, conversation, Vermont and the effects/impacts of substance abuse on all lives involved.

Jason Broughton, Vermont state librarian and commissioner

Copyright 2021 by Brett Ann Stanciu

A LL R IGHTS R ESERVED

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to:

Steerforth Press L.L.C., 31 Hanover Street, Suite 1

Lebanon, New Hampshire 03766

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress

Ebook ISBN9781586422707

a_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0

For Molly and Gabriela, beloved daughters.

And, again, for my father.

The past is the present, isnt it? Its the future, too.

We all try to lie out of that but life wont let us.

Eugene ONeill, Long Days Journey into Night

A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.

Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part One