Above Lucky Lou's, seven-year-old Eddie grows up among cigarette smoke, racing forms, unpaid bills, and promises that rarely survive until morning. His father drinks, gambles, and dreams of one impossible winning ticket. His mother disappears behind locked doors, chasing the next fix while Eddie learns how to feed himself, stay quiet, and make a childhood from comics, arcades, baseball, and the small kindnesses of strangers. Then Eddie discovers a computer. Inside its glowing screen, rules make sense. Mistakes can be corrected. Monsters can be defeated. And locked doors can be opened.

Told in the style of a darkly comic, rhyming picture book, Raised Above Lucky Lou's follows one boy's journey from neglect and survival to code, college, and a life he builds for himself. Brutal, funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful, it is an illustrated satire for adults who grew up too quickly and learned that escaping the past does not require forgetting it. Some children inherit a home. Others must build one.