In the tradition of The Night of the Gun, this propulsive memoir lays bare the human cost of the opioid crisis, as one woman goes in search of the truth and her sister’s killer.
Dear Dealer is a love letter. It’s also a ransom note, hate mail, a monologue, and a diary of obsession addressed to the drug dealer Nadia Bowers is on a mission to find, the one she holds accountable for the fentanyl overdose death of her older sister, Sasha. As Nadia begins to uncover the truth of how Sasha died alone in her car in 2015, she must also confront the complexities of who she was in life—an Ivy league grad and beloved social worker in Connecticut whose work with people in recovery couldn’t save her from herself. As Nadia investigates a crime the police won’t, she finds herself in a necessary search for her own identity along with the dealer’s. Who is Nadia because of her sister? Who is she without her?
Nadia loses Sasha a month after she is married, and just months before giving birth to her son. As she begins a family of her own, she reflects on her shifting roles as sister, daughter, and new mother, examining how loss reshaped her sense of self. Expanding on her viral 2018 This American Life piece of the same name, Nadia’s searing words to the faceless dealer, the last one to see her sister alive, are braided with rage, reflection, and savage humor as she recounts the Bowers sisters’ once idyllic coming of age and their intertwined lives.
Rooted in searing honesty and poetic prose, Dear Dealer is a richly compelling who-done-it memoir as much about confronting addiction and family trauma as it is about seeking meaning, forgiveness, and hope in the aftermath of tragedy.