NOWHERE GIRL
A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood
By the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities. I’ll know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and most important, how to disappear . . .
To the young Cheryl Diamond, life felt like one big adventure, whether she was hurtling down the Himalayas in a rickety car or mingling with underworld fixers. Her family appeared to be an unbreakable gang of five. One day they were in Australia, the next in South Africa, the pattern repeating as they crossed continents,
By the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities. I’ll know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and most important, how to disappear . . .
To the young Cheryl Diamond, life felt like one big adventure, whether she was hurtling down the Himalayas in a rickety car or mingling with underworld fixers. Her family appeared to be an unbreakable gang of five. One day they were in Australia, the next in South Africa, the pattern repeating as they crossed continents, changed identities, and erased their pasts. What Diamond didn’t yet know was that she was born into a family of outlaws fleeing from the highest international law enforcement agencies, a family with secrets that would eventually catch up to all of them.
By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.
Surviving would require her to escape, and to do so Diamond would have to unlearn all the rules she grew up with. Wild, heartbreaking, and often unexpectedly funny, Nowhere Girl is an impossible-to-believe true story of self-discovery and triumph.
- Algonquin Books
- Paperback
- June 2022
- 320 Pages
- 9781643752518
Buy the Book
$16.95
About Cheryl Diamond
Cheryl Diamond is now a citizen of Luxembourg and lives between there and Rome. Her behind-the-scenes account of life as a teenage model, Model: A Memoir, was published in 2008. Diamond´s second book, Naked Rome, reveals the Eternal City through the eyes of its most fascinating people. Her new book, Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood, is available now.
Praise
“Like Tara Westover’s Educated, Cheryl Diamond’s memoir tells the harrowing story of how crippling a childhood can be under the despotic narcissistic rule of a controlling father . . . Diamond has a powerful story to tell, and she tells it well, creating strong characters and settings, describing the complicated motivations of her parents and older siblings, all while conveying her yearning for ‘normalcy,’ whatever that is.”—New York Journal of Books
“This memoir is proof that truth really is stranger than fiction.”—CrimeReads, “The Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021: Summer Reading Edition”
“A transfixing chronicle . . . Propulsive . . . Eloquent and bracing, Diamond’s story will haunt readers long after the last page.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A beyond-harrowing memoir . . . Diamond’s tale might just be the most mind-blowing of them all.”—Booklist, starred review
“Former teen model Diamond reveals a childhood both wacky and cliff-hanging in Nowhere Girl; on the run with an outlaw family, she lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities, by age nine.”—Library Journal
“Nowhere Girl beautifully captures the intensity, darkness, and fierce love within an uncompromising outlaw family. Diamond’s odyssey would leave the most adventurous among us panting to keep up.”—Alia Volz, author of Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco
Discussion Questions
1. Cheryl’s parents may have contributed to her strong sense of self, and also negated her sense of self. Do you think Cheryl’s childhood on the run gave her other strengths? What, if any, were the positive aspects?
2. Cheryl accuses her father of not ever loving her. Do you think that’s true?
3. Cheryl believed her family was running from Interpol, but do you think it’s possible there were other reasons that Cheryl’s father was uprooting them? If so, what were those reasons?
4. How do you think the family situation contributed to Cheryl’s brother’s abuse? Are secrets always harmful?
5. When Cheryl ‘s brother disappears, no one in the family speaks of it. What effect does that have on Cheryl?
6. How do you think having Crohn’s Disease helped Cheryl eventually escape from her father?
7. What responsibility does Cheryl ‘s mother bear for what happened in this story?
8. In what ways were Cheryl ‘s grandfather and father similar? In what ways were they different?
9. Besides the right to travel and work legally, what do you think finally obtaining her identify papers gave Cheryl? Why were they so important to her?
10. It has been said that happiness is a form of courage. Do you think that pertains to Cheryl’s story? How so?