“There was the gone and the going away, and there was the after.”

The opioid epidemic has decimated so many lives in our North Carolina mountains. David Joy tells such a story through the eyes of addicts, their families, and law enforcement as they deal with a flood of drugs working through the Qualla Boundary (the Cherokee Reservation). The tale is gritty and harsh and your heart aches for the characters.

The title “When These Mountains Burn” refers literally to the wildfires of 2016 (including the one that destroyed much of Gatlinburg Tennessee), and figuratively to both the opioid epidemic and the loss of mountain culture over the years.