Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America

Journalist and Dopesick author Macy poignantly interweaves her personal history with that of her decaying hometown in this perceptive account. Raised in blue-collar Urbana, Ohio, which teemed with factory jobs and good schools in the 1970s and ’80s, Macy survived poverty and an alcoholic father with the help of the public library, family friends, and a job delivering newspapers that helped her pay for college. Returning in the 2020s to care for her ailing mother, Macy witnessed Urbana’s “backward mobility,” characterized by opioid addiction, declining educational opportunities, and rampant loneliness. As she recalls episodes from her complicated childhood, Macy attempts to diagnose the causes of Urbana’s current dysfunction, considering the corrosive effects of cable news, social media, and crumbling unions on the community that helped her achieve her own imperfect version of the American dream. As she watches old friends become consumed by anti-immigrant rhetoric, including an ex-boyfriend who helped stir up attention around Haitian immigrants in Springfield during the 2024 election, Macy concludes that “the answer to our epidemic of loneliness isn’t to seek solace in conspiracy theories; it’s to participate in real life with other human beings.” Timely, clear-eyed, and empathetic, her insights provide a welcome salve for a festering social wound. It’s a sobering journey into America’s splintered heartland. Photos. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME. (Oct.)