Life for Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Is There No Place on Earth for Me? comes a poignant account exposing the harsh realities of the foster care system.

“No reader with a conscience, no reader with a heart, will come away from this complicated, infuriating and unforgettable book untouched or unmotivated to instill long-overdue change.”–Michael Dorris, author of The Broken Chord

On October 7, 1984, Crystal Taylor gave birth to a baby boy whom she named Daquan. Crystal was only fourteen. She was living with a boyfriend whom she was too young to marry, and her mother was addicted to heroin and cocaine. So under the law, Crystal and Daquan became wards of New York State’s foster-care system—a sprawling, often slipshod web of boarding facilities, halfway houses, and paid surrogates that cares for almost 60,000 children.

Life for Me Ain’t Been No Crystal Stair is the story of what happened to Crystal and Daquan, as well as to Crystal’s mother, who herself had grown up in various foster homes. It is a story of three generations of poverty, addiction, and abuse—and also a story of astonishing human resilience.