Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class

寄養童年回憶錄
直面階級與家庭創傷的深刻告白

在這本「感人…引人入勝…令人心碎」（Booklist 評價）的成長回憶錄中，羅布．韓德森（Rob Henderson）生動回顧自己在寄養系統中長大的經歷、從軍入伍、就讀頂尖大學，並提出「奢侈信念」的概念——一種上流社會用來彰顯地位，卻對弱勢群體造成傷害的價值觀與意見。

羅布出生於一位毒癮纏身的母親與一位素未謀面的父親之間，童年時期在加州輾轉十個寄養家庭。當他終於被一戶充滿愛的家庭收養時，他以為自己的人生將邁入穩定與安全的軌道。但隨著父母離婚、家庭悲劇、貧困與暴力接踵而來，他的青少年歲月仍滿佈創傷，最終在高中畢業後投身軍旅生涯。

《Troubled》是一幅「鮮明、深刻、感人且有力的畫像」（《藍圖》作者 Nicholas A. Christakis 評語），描繪破碎家庭、絕望與堅毅的交織歷程。韓德森以自己的經歷對照那些入獄或喪命的朋友們，展現他如何走上一條不同的道路。儘管他穿梭於社會階層的高低起伏，仍覺得自己始終是局外人。他那些看似輝煌的成就——軍旅生涯、耶魯大學學士、劍橋大學博士——在內心深處卻顯得空洞。

他主張，一個穩定的家庭遠比外在成就來得重要，並揭示社會中最特權的一群人，如何透過某些價值標準獲益的同時，卻傷害了最弱勢的族群。

NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this "affecting...intriguing...heartbreaking" (Booklist) coming-of-age memoir, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities, and pioneering the concept of "luxury beliefs"--ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the less fortunate. Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. But divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school. A "vivid, insightful, poignant, and powerful" (Nicholas A. Christakis, author of Blueprint) portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson's expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed. As he navigates the peaks and valleys of social class, Henderson finds that he remains on the outside looking in. His greatest achievements--a military career, an undergraduate education from Yale, a PhD from Cambridge--feel like hollow measures of success. He argues that stability at home is more important than external accomplishments, and he illustrates the ways the most privileged among us benefit from a set of social standards that actively harm the most vulnerable.