Nadia Bowers’ ‘Dear Dealer’ is a stunning, soulful tribute to a sister who died by overdose.

On this episode of Fully Booked, actor, writer, and voice-over artist Nadia Bowers joins us to discuss Dear Dealer: A Memoir (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, Sept. 15), a remarkable debut memoir addressed to the unknown man who sold her sister, Sasha, the drugs that caused her fatal overdose in 2015. The memoir extends the themes of a piece by the same, created for NPR’s This American Life in 2018. Kirkus calls Dear Dealer “a moving embodiment of the powerful, creative energy of grief.”

Here’s a bit more from our starred review: “Bowers, a film and stage actor, had a lifelong intense relationship with her older sister, Sasha, though at the time of Sasha’s death at age 44 due to a fentanyl overdose, some distance had grown between them. Both the closeness and the distance are evoked with resonant detail in this debut memoir, which documents the author’s slow, painful progress over a period of years toward an understanding of her sister’s life and death that she can live with.…The central device of the book is a series of letters to this mystery man, which the author first created in a 2018 piece for This American Life. ‘Dear Dealer,’ each one begins, then goes on to berate, question, and hound him.”

Bowers works in theater, television, and film. She has a B.A. in sociology and French from Dartmouth College and an M.F.A. in acting from NYU’s graduate acting program. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, actor Corey Stoll, and their son.

In an unforgettable conversation, Bowers shares the genesis of Dear Dealer, born in part from the anger she felt in the aftermath of Sasha’s death—and the importance of expressing anger, in life and in literature. We talk about the unfathomable extent of the opioid epidemic, how many lives have been lost, and how many lives have been altered. Bowers tells listeners what she’d like them to know about Sasha, and we discuss how she approached expressing the fullness of her life on the page.

At the end of our interview, Bowers recommends a moving work of nonfiction about the opioid crisis. Follow @kirkus_reviews on Instagram, DM us the title of that book, along with your email and location, and you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive a $100 Visa gift card, courtesy of Kirkus. The giveaway is open to legal residents of the U.S. who have reached 18 years of age or older at the time of entry.

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Fully Booked is produced by Jessica Lockhart and Megan Labrise.