Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard

The prologue opens with the narrator discussing a photograph of her mother with a man named Mike. The narrator doesn’t know who Mike is, but knows that her mother was seventeen years old when the photo was taken in Greenwich Village, on the island of Manhattan, in 1971. The narrator reveals that she is sixteen, and that this is the only remaining photograph of her mother.

The narrator describes her mother as stern and revels over the look of her eyes, which “shine like two dark marbles” (1). She compares herself to her mother, thinking her mother is prettier, though they have the same eye shape. However, where her mother’s eyes were dark, hers are yellow-green. The narrator reveals that for years, she’s had nowhere to live, and has gotten by with the kindness of friends who let her hide in their bathrooms.

The narrator’s mother was also homeless at age sixteen. The narrator discusses her fear that she won’t have a place to sleep. That fear, along with missing her mother, keeps sleep at bay, which frustrates the narrator because she knows that she’ll be out on the streets again soon, and needs to sleep.