Oblivion Angels by Sheldon Lee Compton, reviewed by Hugh Blanton
by Sheldon Lee Compton
Opioid Oblivion
by Hugh Blanton
When the Sackler family and their drug company Purdue Pharma found themselves on the receiving end of numerous lawsuits during the height of the opioid epidemic, they were called to Congress to testify. In 2020 the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the US House of Representatives put David Sackler on the hot seat for hours of testimony. Afterward, representative James Comer of Kentucky said there were partisan divisions in reaction to Sackler's deposition, but they were united in at least one aspect: "I think our opinion of Purdue Pharma and the actions of your family...are sickening." The Sacklers offered up a huge settlement of $6 billion, but with a proviso that immunized them from future lawsuits. In June 2024 the US Supreme Court told them to shove their offer up their asses.
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Sheldon Lee Compton's latest novel Oblivion Angels is a fierce examination of addiction and poverty. We open up in Eastern Kentucky where a woman has had her infant son taken from her after smacking a Child Protective Services worker in the mouth. The child's father leaves her. She drives to the top of a mountain in the middle of the night contemplating suicide. There's an old abandoned package store nearby. She gets out of the car and sits on the store's rotted steps:
To each side of her were Alberta evergreens that were no more than waist high years ago and often landscaped but were now coned trees nearly reaching the eaves of the liquor store's roof. The store was a pulled cavity dropped on top of the mountain, dark and rotted, broken off in black chunks of wood from the sides; the block foundation was broken, too, with patches of emerald fungal growth on the few blocks left whole and not crushed or smashed over the years by settling weight or bored vandals.
This bleakness rarely lets up throughout the novel. Rita Reed, just recently separated from her husband Terry, turns to church and bingo with friends for solace, but there's only so much to be had: "None of it had brought her out of her darkness. There were times when she truly understood the word heartbreak as a word that happens once heartache becomes unbearable, when the fear of what happens after we die is outweighed by the pain required in order to keep living."
Terry was in fact an alcoholic and drug addict. When he could no longer get prescriptions for his pills he turned to the black market: "ten tens for $120." He'd of course learned to chew his oxy's up to get the buzz faster in addition to put a 30-pack of Old Milwaukee away every day. The stories in Oblivion Angels take place in fictional locations in Eastern Kentucky, but author Sheldon Compton leaves us clues as to where things are taking place. At one point Terry believes he may have killed a man in a fight in a remote location on a mountain. Terry's friend Evan says they should leave and call "Post 9" when they get to a phone. Post 9 is the Kentucky State Police post in Pikeville that serves the five counties of Floyd, Johnson, Magoffin, Martin and Pike. With sprinklings of actual Eastern Kentucky locations (Shelbiana and Melvin being two), we can assume the Pull County and Fulton County of Oblivion are Pike and Floyd counties. These counties were among the hardest hit in the opioid epidemic.
Barbara Kingsolver's 2023 Pulitzer winning novel Demon Copperhead takes place in Lee County, Virginia just across the state line from Oblivion's stories in Kentucky. Demon Copperhead's protagonist becomes addicted to opioids after sustaining a knee injury playing high school football. And in Lee County as well, a black market was readily available once the prescriptions ran out. As was found out later in lawsuit filings and court testimony, "pill mills" sprang up everywhere to meet the demand; people with prescriptions sold their pills to other addicts and dealers. Pharmacies eagerly filled questionable prescriptions from questionable doctors (pharmacies also coughed up huge amounts in cash settlements an alcoholic man trying to save his nephew from dope and dope dealers (if he can save himself first). In Oblivion, Terry's daughter Miranda is killed in an automobile accident where the driver had been high on Oxy's. It wasn't until much later that Terry found out the cause of the crash was a fight in the bed of the pickup. This is a theme that runs through Compton's stories—family, togetherness, fighting through the tough times. Oblivion Angels is written in a stream-of-consciousness mode and often drags in places. However, when the thunder and lightning do strike, the reader will be sent hiding under the bed every time. Compton's masterstrokes are characters so alive on the page the reader feels every bit of their agony or elation. Even the most jaded reader will need a minute to themselves after Oblivion.
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