FIRST IN THE FAMILY
A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream
An unflinching and intimate memoir of recovery by Jessica Hoppe, Latinx writer, advocate, and creator of NuevaYorka.
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.
An unflinching and intimate memoir of recovery by Jessica Hoppe, Latinx writer, advocate, and creator of NuevaYorka.
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 BIPOC from recovery institutions and narratives, leaving the reader with an urgent message of hope.
- Flatiron Books
- Hardcover
- September 2024
- 272 Pages
- 9781250865229
Buy the Book
$29.99
About Jessica Hoppe
Jessica Hoppe is a Honduran Ecuadorian writer and creator of @NuevaYorka. She has been featured on ABC News, and Pa’lante! Max. Her work has appeared in 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 is an organizer with the CentAm & Isthmian Writers group. She lives in New York City. First in the Family is her debut memoir.
Praise
“An illuminating and intense reading experience.” —Kirkus
“[A] stunning… deeply moving memoir about how understanding our histories—both present and past—allows for recovery and healing rooted in the politics of liberation.” ―BookPage (starred review)
“First in the Family does the mammoth work of bending backward and forward, weaving a multivalent story that asks us to consider the actual, and often awesome, debris of necessary fracture. A beautiful piece of art.” ―Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
“A gripping narrative of generational addiction… This is an essential read, offering profound insights into the complexities of addiction in families and the often-obscured and difficult path to recovery.” ―Booklist
“Hoppe debuts with a bold and illuminating account of getting sober and her attempts to ‘decolonize recovery’ by deconstructing ingrained narratives about people of color and substance abuse… She presents her findings in sharp, forceful prose, effortlessly weaving together her personal story and her insights into the intersection between race and sobriety. This is essential reading.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)