First published 2026
Stefan Merrill Block was nine years old when his mother decided his teachers were crushing his creative spirit. She withdrew him from school and began teaching him herself in their living room, despite having no educational training or background. What started as informal math lessons soon spiraled into something far stranger. His mother forced him to bleach his hair and crawl like an infant in bizarre attempts to recreate his early childhood. For five years, Stefan remained isolated from the outside world while his mother pursued increasingly eccentric theories and projects. When he finally returned to public school as a freshman in Plano, the culture shock hit him hard. This memoir captures both a son's struggle to forge his own path and a mother's overwhelming love that threatened to consume them both.
Genres: biography, coming-of-age, memoir, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, fish-out-of-water
Setting: New York, Plano
Period: 21st-century
288 pages · Hardcover · Hanover Square Press
Content warnings: abuse, mental-illness