About this item
A luminous, generation-defining memoir of foster care and homelessness, Harvard and Big Tech, examining society's fixation on resilience - and its costAs a homeless teenager writing college essays in her '92 Toyota Corolla, Emi Nietfeld was convinced that an elite school was the only path away from her dysfunctional childhood. But upward mobility required crafting the perfect resilience narrative, proving that she was an "overcomer," made stronger by all that she had endured. The truth was far murkier.
Emi's mom was a charming hoarder who had her put on antipsychotics, but believed in her daughter's brilliance - unlike the Minnesotan foster family who banned her "pornographic" art history flash cards (of Michelangelo's David) . Emi's other parent's departure from her life was tied up in a gender transition that few in the mid-2000s understood.
About the Author
Emi Nietfeld is a writer and software engineer. After graduating from Harvard in 2015, she worked at Google and Facebook. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Rumpus, Vice, and other publications. She lives in New York City with her family.
