There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, or homelessness.

Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty.

And that’s when things got interesting….

You have in your hands the strange, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating tale of a woman named Cupcake. It begins as the story of a girl orphaned twice over, once by the death of her mother and then again by a child welfare system that separated her from her stepfather and put her into the hands of an epically sadistic foster parent. But there comes a point in her preteen years—maybe it’s the night she first tries to run away and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all at once—when Cupcake’s story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark comic blues opera. As Cupcake’s troubles grow, so do her voice and spirit. Her gut-punch sense of humor and eye for the absurd, along with her outsized will, carry her through a fateful series of events that could easily have left her dead.

Young Cupcake learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, partying like a rock star, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. But Cupcake’s unlikely tour through the cubicle world was paralleled by a quickening descent into the nightmare of crack cocaine use, till she eventually found herself living behind a Dumpster.

Astonishingly, she turned it around. With the help of a cobbled together family of eccentric fellow addicts and "angels"—a series of friends and strangers who came to her aid at pivotalmoments—she slowly transformed her life from the inside out.

A PIECE OF CAKE is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving and almost transgressive in its frankness, it is a relentlessly gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of contemporary urban life and survived it with a furious wit and unyielding determination. Cupcake Brown is a dynamic and utterly original storyteller who will guide you on the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.

1

The booming music coming from Momma's radio alarm clock suddenly woke me. I could hear Elton John singing about Philadelphia freedom.

I wonder why Momma didn't wake me? I thought to myself.

It was January 1976. Wasn't no school that day. But Momma still had to go to work. So, while Momma was at work, I was goin' over to Daddy's house to play with Kelly, the daughter of his lady friend.

I wonder why she didn't wake me? I thought again to myself as I climbed out of bed.

When I passed the dresser I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Boy, was I ugly.

"Skinny, black, and ugly." That's what the kids at school called me. Or they'd yell out, "Vette, Vette, looks just like my pet!"

My name was La'Vette, but my first birth name was Cupcake. At least that's what my momma told me. Seems Momma craved cupcakes when she was pregnant with me. She had three cupcakes a day, every day, without fail, for nine and a half months (I was two weeks overdue). Momma said that even if she didn't eat anything else, she'd have her daily dose of cupcakes.

Anyway, seems that while "we" were in labor, the hospital gave Momma some pain drugs. Once Momma popped me out, the nurse said:

"Pat"--that was my momma's name--"you have a little girl. Do you know what you want to name her?"

Tired and exhausted from eight hours of hard labor, Momma lifted her head, smiled sheepishly, and said, "Cupcake," before she passed out.

So that's what they put down on my birth certificate. I mean, that is what she said. (The nurses thought it was due to the excitement of motherhood, Momma said it was the drugs). A few hours later, however, when Daddy came to the hospital he decided he didn't like "Cupcake." Momma said Daddy wanted to name me La'Vette. So, just to make Daddy happy, Momma said she had the hospital change my name. I didn't mind, really. I loved my daddy; so as far as I was concerned, he could change my name to whatever he wanted. But, Momma said that to her I would always be Cupcake. She never called me anything else, 'cept sometimes she called me "Cup" for short.

Anyway, the kids at school always told me that I was ugly. They teased me, saying I looked like "Aunt Esther," that old lady from Sanford and Son, the one always calling Sanford a "fish-eyed fool." She was the ugliest woman I'd ever seen. So if the other kids thought I looked like her, I knew I had to be ugly. Besides, everybody knew a black girl wasn't considered pretty unless she was light-skinned with long straight hair. I was dark-skinned with short kinky hair. I hated my complexion. I hated my hair. I hated my skinny legs and arms.

But, my momma thought I was beautiful. She'd say:

"Cup, you're only eleven years old. You will appreciate your beauty as you grow up."

Shoot, I couldn't wait to grow up!

Momma always said things to make me feel better. I loved my momma. She was my best friend and she was beautiful: she had cocoa-colored skin and her long black hair hung way past her shoulders. And, Momma had the biggest, prettiest smile you ever saw. People always told her that she looked like Diana Ross because of her long hair and wide beautiful smile--all teeth.

I passed the black ugly thing in the mirror and continued toward Momma's room. The radio alarm continued to blast. I giggled to myself. Momma was like me. She hated getting up in the morning, so she put the clock way across the room and turned it all the way up so it would scare her awake in the morning. That way, she'd have to get out of bed and walk across the room...