Wonderland A tale of hustling hard and breaking even

In this winning debut memoir, CUNY writing instructor Treska untangles what she learned from growing up in a working-class, crime-adjacent Boston family. Treska came of age in the 1980s and '90s, long after the beachside amusement park of the book's title had shuttered, though its legacy lived on as a symbol of the hopes and dreams of the "hardscrabble Bostonians" who populated the author's early life. Her father, Phil, was a habitual gambler and occasional drug trafficker whose perennial optimism ("Each decision and small act was imbued with hope") sculpted the author's own sensibility. His entanglements with the Winter Hill Gang and other shady figures taught Treska to "hone her hustle," a lesson she's put to good use as one of "the waitresses of academia," who makes ends meet by renting out her Harlem apartment on Airbnb. The death of Treska's paternal aunt spurs her to return home to Boston and anchors her self-reflections, but there's not much narrative thrust to speak of. Instead, Treska paints indelible impressions of Phil, his criminal cohort, and her lovers, including the avoidant academic she falls for in New York City. It amounts to an arresting and compassionate self-portrait. Agent: Annie DeWitt, Shipman Agency. (July)

A New York City--based writer reflects on the life and family that she left behind in Boston but never left her consciousness. In her debut memoir, Treska describes a Boston comprised of working-class people who dreamed of better and often of the kind of escape promised by the long-defunct Wonderland amusement park. "Boston's rich history of greased handshakes and popping flashbulbs for the businessman, politicians, and mobsters making deals, created upheaval and impermanence for the rest of us," writes the author. "We were sold out and told it was for the public good." Treska's way out of the city and her peripatetic military family, plagued by mental illness and drug addiction, was through education. In 2008, she came to New York to study, only to find herself caught in a post--economic crash world that drove her into debt and kept her "on poverty's constant edge." However, her willingness to try new things--e.g., becoming an Airbnb host--paid off, even as she found herself at the mercy of landlords seeking to profit from her rent-stabilized apartment. As Treska found a way forward through difficulty, her past continued to haunt her. An on-again, off-again relationship with a visiting professor she called the Turk taught the author that her need for illusion made her no different from her Vietnam veteran father, whom Treska tried to save from a tantalizing--but also exploitative--online relationship. At the same time, the Turk's inability to commit made her realize how much her father's inability to give of himself had influenced her choice of partner. As the author explores the way class, place, and family shape identity and desire, she also celebrates her ability to accept, with ferocity and love, the painful past that made her who she was. A poignantly affecting memoir about surviving and thriving. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.