Thirty-Thousand Steps

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What to expect

After Jess Keefe ended things with her long-term boyfriend, she moved in with her brother Matt in hopes that family could help her not only heal from the break-up but also evolve into a healthy adult. But that fantasy ended when Matt’s heroin addiction came roaring back after lying dormant for years, leading to a fatal overdose on a warm October night.

Thirty-Thousand Steps is a powerful and transformative memoir that interweaves the author’s obsessive training to becoming a distance runner, along with her singular, focused research into the science of addiction in the shadow of grief after the death of her brother.

In the year that followed Matt’s death, Jess lived alone for the first time in her life while struggling with a loose, bereaved mind. She became obsessed with what happened to her brother and how things could have been different. She dove into research about addiction and drugs. She excavated their shared childhood and young adulthood for clues.

During this time, she was also learning how to become a distance runner. Jess pushed her body to its limits to quiet the chaos in her mind. After losing Matt, she knew she’d never be the same.

With a propulsive narrative, a unique voice, empathy, and even humor, Jess weaves her grieving experience together with explorations of the social, political, and scientific drivers that influenced what happened to her brother. Thirty-Thousand Steps explores the psychosocial risk factors that lead to addiction, the cudgel of Catholicism, the joy and shame in the early-aughts queer experience, and the extent to which one can push mind and body to regenerate after a major loss.

Critics Review

  • “A beautiful tribute to a lost brother and to running toward, not away from, our lives.”

    Maia Szalavitz, New York Times bestselling author

  • “Keefe offers a clear-eyed view of addiction and its roots and treatments, all while condemning the criminalization and moralizing that keeps people shamed and sick. With great care, she shows us that it’s possible to survive the unimaginable, revealing the pain in her grieving body and reckoning with the enormity of loss by investigating how it happened. This book is a profound act of love, a hand to hold in the dark, and a road map out of hell.”

    Leigh Cowart, author of Hurts So Good

  • “Jess Keefe’s debut memoir is a beautifully written, heartbreaking, and hopeful journey that peels back the misunderstood layers of addiction’s impact on those most affected—loved ones. Thirty-Thousand Steps is a powerful reminder that there is life and purpose after loss.”

    Ryan Hampton, addiction recovery advocate and best-selling author

  • “A lot has been written about the opioid epidemic but nothing as tender as Jess Keefe’s debut…this book broke my heart into a thousand pieces and then slowly, delicately put it back together again.”

    Tessa Miller, author of What Doesn't Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness—Lessons from a Body in Revolt

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