I MARRIED A CRACKHEAD

At twelve years old, Charlotte Pierce comes home from school and finds her mother unconscious on the bathroom floor.

That moment doesn’t ruin her life.
It shapes it.

Told through Charlotte’s older, wiser voice, I Married a Crackhead is a raw, unsentimental coming-of-age story about brilliance forged inside instability. As Charlotte’s mother cycles through addiction, recovery, and restless reinvention—and her father quietly rebuilds his life after leaving—Charlotte learns to survive by watching, adapting, and staying silent.

When her genius is discovered and she’s accepted into one of Charlotte’s most elite private schools, her world splits open. Inside polished hallways and white classrooms, she excels. At home, she learns what recovery really looks like: uneven, exhausting, and never guaranteed. A formidable Black headmistress becomes an unexpected surrogate, showing Charlotte what steadiness feels like when it isn’t conditional.

This is not a fairy tale about escape.
It’s a truthful story about alignment.

About choosing stability without abandoning love.
About growing up without pretending the past disappears.
About learning that clarity doesn’t come from fixing everyone—but from finally choosing where you can rest.

Unflinching, intimate, and deeply human, I Married a Crackhead is for readers who understand that life is joy and pain intertwined—and that the most powerful endings don’t erase the struggle, they honor it.