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Here everyone, it's read. Before we get started, we're doing something a little bit different today.

My conversation with Sam Kenyunus is really about what drives so many of the societal forces that

we hear about, but don't really always understand. Sometimes we need to be reminded how lucky we all are

and how a lot of people don't have it as good as we do. And now on with the show.

Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Reed Gailan. Today, I'm joined by Sam Kenyunus,

journalist, storyteller, and author. His career as a journalist has spanned over 30 years during

which he wrote while living in Mexico for a decade, wrote for the LA Times covering immigration, drug

trafficking, neighborhood stories, and gangs, and freelance for a variety of other publications including

National Geographic, The New York Times, and LA Magazine. He's written four highly acclaimed books,

The Latest of Witches, The Least of Us, True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and

His full catalog of books is available wherever fine books are sold. Today he is coming to us from

Nashville, Tennessee. Sam, welcome. Well, thank you very much. Great to be with you, Reed.

So, Sam, as I mentioned right before we started recording, I first heard about your work

from a friend of mine, getting Bill Burton. We were doing a project years ago and he said,

if you haven't read this book, you really don't understand what's going on with the opioid crisis

in this country. And I was born in a small town in Ohio, Sam, Marietta, which is right across the

river from Parker's, Berguest, Virginia, one of those towns, you know, where they give out an

allocsoon over the counter. And so, absolutely fascinated by that book and really just blown away

by the depth and breadth, not only of the reporting, but also of the story itself. And after I found

...