Methland

Clay is an Oelwein doctor who works at Mercy hospital. He is an alcoholic who drinks to cope with the stresses of treating drug addicts all day and the trauma from a childhood of abuse. Clay is Reding’s window into the consequences of meth addiction on medical professionals. His experiences show that the toll of working with addicts takes on social workers and doctors is real and immense.

Clay is an archetype common to many works of literature: the wounded healer. Clay’s professional charge is to maintain and enrich the health of the people he serves, but many of them are beyond help. Clay’s own battles with addiction help him empathize with addicts, but this comes at a cost. At the end of the story he is sober and reflective, telling Reding, “I’m not anyone but me. When you’re a shit, you think you’re other people. You think for other people. All I have to do is not that. The rest’ll work out. The thing is, I could never believe that. I didn’t how. But now I do” (223). His growing self-awareness helps him contemplate a better life. 

Roland is an addict who suffered disfiguring burns and injuries in a meth lab explosion. He exemplifies the insidious hold that meth can take on the user. Even after his accident and disfigurement, he finds ways to continue using meth. Roland illustrates the truth that the experience of meth use is so euphoric for some individuals that nothing else can compare to it. Roland is a symbol of the pure, insatiable appetite to which meth use can reduce a person. He appears to be one of the most hopeless cases in Methland, and he demonstrates no desire for change. When he speaks about his near-death experience, he knows that his neighbors wished he would die. He says, “I don’t blame them. What else could you do with a man like me?” (42).

Nathan Lein is a prosecutor who also works on his parents’ farm. He is the legal counterpoint to Clay’s medical professionalism. Nathan knows that many of the people he prosecutes will never overcome their addictions. Rather, they will spend their lives enmeshed with the legal and penal system.

Nathan is conflicted between his job and his personal feelings. He prosecutes criminals in court, and many of them have committed serious crimes. However, he rarely dehumanizes them and resists the urge to think of them as ‘shitbags’ whenever he can. Nathan knows that the addicts are trapped in a loop from which they may never escape. Despite his legal expertise, he does not claim to know how much responsibility the addicts should bear for their actions. He does not condone their acts, but knows that the story of meth addiction is more complicated then the media portrays it to be.

Nathan also represents the strong link between the people in rural America and the towns where they were raised. His legal skill could get him a job in many larger, safer places, but he is both unwilling and unable to abandon his parents to the poverty of their farm. Nathan is elected to city council near the end of the book and is open to serving a term as mayor. His commitment to Oelwein’s improvement is evident, but he remains skeptical about how much the town can change. 

Larry is the Mayor of Oelwein. He manages the intricate, unenviable task of stabilizing Oelwein’s economy, attracting new citizens, renovating Oelwein’s downtown while lacking funds, and handling public relations in a town that grows increasingly unsafe. Larry represents the challenges faced by well-intentioned leaders in small towns. He is ostensibly supported by the federal government, but in reality, he—along with many small-town mayors—is isolated from the rest of the American political apparatus. If he does not make Oelwein a priority, he knows that no one in the government above him will either.

Although Murphy is a committed public servant and proves to be a gifted fundraiser, more than once he admits that Oelwein’s problems may not have a solution. He serves out of a sense of duty, even working at home to save money for the town instead of paying for an office.