The ‘Slow-Motion Terrorism of Pirate Capitalism’

In the ranks of towns battered by deindustrialization, Lancaster isn’t exactly the worst off. It’s 30 miles from Columbus, making it part of one of the Midwest’s most economically healthy metropolitan areas. The population, about 40,000, is growing. There’s an Ohio University satellite campus. And not only is the old Anchor Hocking glass factory—long Lancaster’s economic heart—still operating, but the town is also home to the headquarters of its parent company, the Oneida Group.

Ah, but therein lies a story. It’s one of several that veteran journalist and author Brian Alexander tells in Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town ($26.99, St. Martin’s Press), a melancholic but gripping account of his 13-month stay, from December 2014 to January 2016, in the troubled, drug-ravaged city where he grew up. There are tales of a heroin deal gone bad, an annual music festival fighting to survive, and people struggling to build a future in a place with a happier past. But it’s the Anchor Hocking saga at the heart of it all that makes this book more than another elegy for good times in Middle America.