What compels us to pick up and buy a memoir? The enthused responses from my impromptu social media poll piled heavily toward voice. But, in many cases, they were drawn to read a voice they already had in their head. This is why celebrities always get the big ass book deals, because publishers know that sales are a no-brainer. Established personalities already have a proven sales record, so a good portion of the public assumes their thoughts or their lives are infinitely more valuable and interesting than the lives of, well, other people. More often than not, these celebrity memoirs are actually painstakingly written by a talented writer-for-hire charged with forging a 250-page narrative out of tidal wave of voice memos, scribbled notes, archives, and Zoom calls. Trust me—I know some of the best in the business.
This is why, more often than not, the best memoirs are written by writers who have the compelling life stories, balls, and talent it takes to excavate their surreal real-life traumas and spin a yarn into gold. Such talent lies within the pages of a memoir called Wonderland: A Tale of Hustling Hard and Breaking Even, by Nicole Treska.
Treska is a professor, literary writer, and an unflinchingly masterful self-chronicler who infused the wild legacy of her family into her life’s story and wrote a book that teaches us all a lesson in resilience. In researching her family history, Treska dug up some nuggets too wild to leave be: Whitey Bulger and the Winter Hill Gang used to chill at her grandpa’s diner. Before Nicole could walk, it was said her dad used her stroller as a decoy to move “product” and, in 1985, her father was sentenced to two years in prison for federal drug trafficking. Eventually, Nicole’s mother moved her and her sister out of Boston and Nicole came to New York City to pursue a writing and academic career. Wonderland begins when she returns to Boston after her father’s sister passes away to reunite with her dad, do a reality tour, and confront her harrowing childhood and its lingering impact.
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“For a long time, I tried to write from the perspective of my dad as a child,” Treska told me over Zoom. “My father is the third of four from Somerville, MA: my youngest uncle Dennis overdosed and died of a heroin addiction; my aunt Loretta
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