Dear Dealer Book Launch – Nadia Bowers in Conversation w/ Dani Shapiro

About this event

Join us as local author Nadia Bowers launches her debut memoir DEAR DEALER in conversation with Dani Shapiro and editor Aimee Bell. *"A moving embodiment of the powerful, creative energy of grief."* **— *Kirkus Reviews* (STARRED)** *“In this gorgeous, brokenhearted elegy to a lost sister, Nadia Bowers has written an extraordinary, brave book.”* **— Dani Shapiro, author of *Inheritance*** *“One of the most honest books I’ve read about what addiction actually costs — not just the person using, but everyone who loved them and couldn’t find a way through. Dear Dealer broke my heart and then did something rarer — it helped me understand why.”* **— Hank Azaria** In the summer of 2015, Nadia Bowers’s beloved older sister, Sasha—a social worker and Ivy League grad—was found in her car in a restaurant parking lot in their hometown outside New Haven, CT, dead from a fentanyl overdose. In *Dear Dealer*, Bowers recounts how, plunged into grief, equipped with Sasha’s phone, and just weeks from giving birth to her first child, she began to investigate her sister’s shadow life: who sold Sasha the drugs that killed her? Did they know each other well? Did the dealer have any idea who Sasha was, outside of addiction? One part narrative, one part epistolary, Bowers interrogates her sister, her family, their history, and herself. Expanding on her viral 2018 *This American Life* essay of the same name—a letter to this imagined dealer—Bowers’s memoir is a love letter, a diary, and a quest in search of the dealer’s identity, as well as her own. Who is she without her sister? Who is she because of her sister? And what now? Bowers reflects on her shifting roles as sister and mother, examining how this sudden loss has reshaped her sense of self. Her letters to the faceless dealer are interwoven with rage, reflection, and even moments of humor as she recounts their intertwined lives alongside memories of charismatic and complex Sasha. As poetic as it is unflinchingly honest, *Dear…