Patrick Radden Keefe, the award-winning investigative journalist and author of “Say Nothing” and “Empire of Pain” will be awarded the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Public Discourse by the College Historical Society (the Hist) at 11am, November 2nd. The event will take place in the GMB and will be open to all Hist members.
Radden Keefe was born and grew up in the US, attending Columbia, but has since also established a connection with Britain, where he received Postgraduate education in Cambridge and London School of Economics and later worked. He is known for his investigation of the pharmaceutical industry’s role in the opioid epidemic, as well as research into financial and organised crime, and state-sanctioned mass surveillance. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and has also contributed plentiful articles to the New York Times Magazine and Slate. In the past, he has been awarded, amongst others, the Peabody Award and Orwell prize, as well as having been the recipient of the Guggenheim and Woodrow Wilson fellowships.
“London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth” is Radden Keefe’s latest book, published in April of this year with Doubleday. It covered the mysterious 2019 death of British teenager Zac Brettler, placing it against the wider context of London’s organised crime. Critics have praised it as “driven by a deep empathy for the suffering of Zac’s family, peopled with an intriguing and often colorful cast of characters, and written with an unassuming grace.” A TV adaptation is forthcoming, from A24 UK.
His other two most-praised books are the 2021 “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty”, examining the Sackler family-run Purdue Pharma, the main manufacturer of the opioid pain-relief drug OxyContin, and the Peabody-winning 2018 “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” which, in a fashion similar to “London Falling”, examined the landscape behind the 1972 abduction and death of Jean McConville in Belfast.
When reached for comment about the reasoning behind the award, Jane Freyer, the Hist’s current auditor, told the UT:
“We’re awarding Patrick Radden Keefe the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Public Discourse as we feel his ongoing career in investigative journalism deserves recognition. Radden Keefe’s writings, including his most recent one, cover a wide range of issues in a detailed and concise manner. Personally, I believe his book ‘Empire of Pain’ has contributed considerably to accountability and outrage over the American Opioid Epidemic, serving as one of the most definitive accounts of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma.”
