Dorrit Little is almost 30, living paycheck to paycheck, and barely keeping up with her undergraduate loan payments. Like the generation before her she wants to own a home and have a family someday, but she is not on track to do either of these things. Is grad school the answer? Is it worth taking on even more debt? But what good is expensive education if she can’t get a j-o-b?

The adventures of Dorrit Little tells the story of a prototypical student debtor in the US today, who is frustrated and let down by the failed promises of higher education within a post-2008 economy. The title is a reworking of Charles Dickens’ serial novel Little Dorrit, which told the tale of the first child born into an English debtor’s prison in the mid-19th century.