A memoir of a childhood at the intersection of culture, mental illness, and addiction. Maybe once a decade you come across a writer and think: I want to read everything they write. I don’t want to miss out on any of it. And Carly Pedersen is one of those writers. With a handful of words, she drops me into a world I’ve never seen that feels utterly familiar. I absolutely know this street she’s taking me down, I’m sure, but I don’t. It’s just that she brings to life so vividly our unnamed territories—the hollow echoing of our alienation, our rage over terrible losses rendered invisible, the love that remains in spite of it all. Carly Pedersen’s Desmadre: An Origin Story is searing and electric, and you don’t want to miss it. –Theo Pauline Nestor, author of Writing Is My Drink