Reding writes that rural America has grown sinister. He originally decided to focus on Iowa for the book because it is where his father is from, and his father worked in an industry that plays a huge role in the challenges faced by a town like Oelwein: agriculture.

Reding’s father was drafted by the Yankees but stayed at Iowa State to finish a chemistry degree. In 1955, he began working at the agrochemical firm Monsanto. He retired as vice chairman in 1998. Monsanto’s streamlining and modernization of raising crops led to many difficulties faced by smaller farms. Reding visits his father’s childhood home in Algona. He tries to visit the baseball field, but it is frozen over. 

At the start of 2007, six months after the Combat Meth Act went into effect, the number of addicts hasn’t changed, even though the amount of pseudoephedrine has. DTOs buy pseudoephedrine from China and Africa, sidestepping American regulations. The closing down of small labs led the media to report that the epidemic was over. The media then reported that the epidemic had never been real and that the war on meth had been waged for political purposes.