Wonderland: A Tale of Hustling Hard and Breaking Even

A necessary narrative that extends compassion and dignity to those our society often withholds it from.

After the death of her paternal aunt, Nicole returns to the town that gave her family its street cred but has taken away everything else. She was born to a family of gangsters in the Boston area whose affiliation with the Winter Hill Gang afforded them an amount of protection, money, and respect.

It's in Boston that she reunites with her father and is reminded of why she left in the first place, but also why she returned. Though Nicole sees it as her responsibility to take care of those around her, as a writer, adjunct professor, and waitress, who rents out the second bedroom of her Harlem apartment on Airbnb to make ends meet, she can barely take care of herself.

If achieving the American Dream means alienating oneself from their community, Wonderland: A Tale of Hustling Hard and Breaking Even reminds us why the reality of "escaping poverty" is more complex than the decisions of individuals, but also depends on the investment we make in our people to thrive together.

"A poignantly affecting memoir about surviving and thriving." Kirkus Reviews

"This winning debut memoir...amounts to an arresting and compassionate self-portrait." Publisher's Weekly

"Straight talk!" Gordon Lish

"A powerful, poetic memoir that brilliantly blends a history of Boston and its surrounding areas with the history of a fascinating — and at times functional — family. A swaggering storyteller of the highest degree, Nicole Treska will have your heart breaking on one page, and your eyes filling with tears of laughter on the next. Filled with hardscrabble characters and hard-earned lessons, here is a magnificent tale that is as New England as it gets." Isaac Fitzgerald, New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts

"A compelling portrait of the Treska family and its fascinating mythology. Hard-scrabble and beautiful, this is a poignant exploration of a working-class community, and the remnants of home as a vessel for memory. Through the complex rivers of love and history and family, Nicole Treska serves as a skillful guide of how to treasure a difficult past we might not always understand. Lyrical, keen, and full of tenderness, I'll never look at Boston or its people the same way again." Safiya Sinclair, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of How to Say Babylon

Nicole Treska is the author of the debut memoir, Wonderland. Her short fiction has appeared in New York Tyrant Magazine, Epiphany Magazine, and Egress: New Openings in Literary Arts. Her interviews and reviews are up at Electric Literature, Guernica, The Millions, BOMB, The Rumpus, and then some. She lives in Harlem with her husband, James, and their three-legged dog, Nadine.