Coming of age poor in spirit in the America of plenty is an old story that is yet endlessly new, beginning afresh every time a confused teenager tries to make sense of his privileged place in the world. Eli Hastings got a head start on this when his idealistic, permissive parents divorced, and he sought answers by sneaking out at night to play chicken with freight trains, write graffiti, and get high with friends. This youthful rebellion included an arrest and weekend in jail for drug possession and later jail for an act of civil disobedience during the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. Hastings recounts how a privileged, white, fiercely leftist American male tries to make sense of himself in relation to the contrary people and situations he finds in books and his travels to Cuba and Central America.Falling Room is the tale of how one man matures through the sometimes violent blessing of social change and finds himself--and a sense of purpose--through the loss of innocence and naivet?. Reflecting on the firsthand experience of hip-hop and substance abuse, of the fracturing of family, the loss of his father, and of the imperialism of the United States, Hastings’s story offers a new and moving look at how families, nations, and individuals survive and heal.

在富足的美国，精神上的贫乏是一个古老的故事，但却有无穷无尽的新意，每当一个困惑的青少年试图了解他在这个世界上的特权地位时，就会重新开始。伊莱-黑斯廷斯在这个问题上有了一个良好的开端，他的理想主义、放任自流的父母离婚了，他通过在晚上溜出去和货运火车玩小鸡，写涂鸦，和朋友们一起嗨来寻求答案。这种年轻的叛逆包括因持有毒品而被捕并在监狱度过周末，后来又因在西雅图举行的世界贸易组织会议期间的公民抗命行为而入狱。黑斯廷斯讲述了一个有特权的、白人的、激烈的左派美国男性如何试图使自己与他在书中发现的相反的人和情况以及他在古巴和中美洲的旅行相联系。《坠落的房间》讲述了一个人如何在社会变革的有时暴力的祝福中成熟起来，并通过失去天真和幼稚找到自己--和一种目标感？黑斯廷斯的故事反思了嘻哈和药物滥用、家庭破裂、失去父亲和美国帝国主义的第一手经验，为家庭、国家和个人如何生存和愈合提供了一个新的、感人的视角。