First in the Family: A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream by Jessica Hoppe (Hardcover)

Nonfiction - Biographies and Autobiographies - Memoir - Self-Help - Substance Abuse and Addictions - Alcohol

RELEASE DATE: 9/10/2024 (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE)

An unflinching and intimate memoir of recovery by Jessica Hoppe, Latinx writer, advocate, and creator of @NuevaYorka.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024: Today.com, LupitaReads, Electric Literature

In this deeply moving and lyrical memoir, Hoppe shares an intimate, courageous account of what it means to truly interrupt cycles of harm. For readers of The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford, and Heavy by Kiese Laymon.

During the first year of quarantine, drug overdoses spiked, the highest ever recorded. And Hoppe’s cousin was one of them. “I never learned the true history of substance use disorder in my family,” Hoppe writes. “People just disappeared.” At the time of her cousin’s death, she’d been in recovery for nearly four years, but she hadn’t told anyone.

In First in the Family, Hoppe shares her journey, the first in her family to do so, and takes the reader on a remarkable investigation of her family’s history, the American Dream, and the erasure of POC from recovery institutions and narratives, leaving the reader with an urgent message of hope.

AUTHOR BIO:

Jessica Hoppe is a Honduran Ecuadorian writer and creator of @NuevaYorka. She has been featured on ABC News and Max Pa'lante! Her work has appeared in the Latino Book Review, the New York Times, Vogue, and elsewhere. Jessica is a board member of Time of Butterflies, a nonprofit supporting families through domestic abuse recovery, and an organizer with the CentAm & Isthmian Writers group. She lives in Harlem with her partner, Freddy, and cat, Fifi. First in the Family is her debut memoir.

"A powerful thunderclap of a memoir, Jessica Hoppe's First in the Family is a rich excavation of one woman's descent into addiction and the power found in laying it all bare. Hoppe's uncompromising voice doesn't hide behind platitudes but gently unravels damaging legacies tied to the "American Dream" with a much-needed critique of the recovery movement. A triumphant example of hope where breaking harmful cycles is not found in the individual achievement but in a collective one." -Lilliam Rivera, Award-winning author of Dealing in Dreams

" First in the Family is truth-telling at its finest. At once raw and brilliant, Jessica Hoppe's debut memoir breaks not only family cycles, but the cycle of the American Dream: a patriarchal, white, racist, misogynist nightmare that doesn't stand a chance in the face of Hoppe's cutthroat pen. Everyone can learn from this level of honesty. We are fortunate to live at the same time as a writer like Jessica." -Javier Zamora, New York Times bestselling author of Solito

" First in the Family sings with love and shouts with rage , offering an uplifting account of resilience and recovery even while calling out the seductive dangers of the American Dream. Jessica Hoppe has crafted an important, pathbreaking contribution by distilling the historical stakes of the addiction crisis, while simultaneously presenting a wrenching and unique personal narrative. It's an insightful chronicle of the burdens of specialness, the weight of intergenerational trauma, and the stigma of addiction. In the end, it's an inspiring and essential message that there are numerous and diverse pathways of recovery." -Carl Erik Fisher, M.D., author of The Urge

" First in the Family is the book I've been waiting for: A powerful reckoning combined with an inspiring sense of freedom. Perfect for anyone questioning their relationship with alcohol, and looking for an honest account of what it takes to navigate sobriety as a woman of color." -Lupita Aquino, LupitaReads