Zara was kicked out of high school, spent years addicted to heroin, and earned a GED before gaining work at a weekly print newspaper just as print was being shoved aside by the new digital world. He never lied on his resume but did all he could to avoid answering the question: Where did you go to college? Not the tale of a genius dropout like Zuckerberg, but rather a thoughtful, often funny, memoir that also examines journalism over the past two decades as it has been forced to change and change again. Layoffs, buyouts by millionaires, the race for clicks, the death grip of social media: he’s seen it all.
Throughout the book, Zara challenges us to examine our presumptions about higher education and how it paves the way to success, providing the elite with more of those vital connections. But there are more non-degreed professionals than we may believe, hiding in plain sight. And when the mass layoffs come, “we’d taken different paths to get here, but we were all going out the same way.” Often racked with performance anxiety, he’s managed to create a life of love and career, as recounted in this well-written book.
