Some people are born into ordinary lives—the kind that can be summed up in a few photo albums, one slightly awkward yearbook quote, and maybe a retirement party slideshow. And then there’s Evelyn Harlow.

Depending on who you ask, she’s Evelyn, Evie, or Eve. Same girl, different spellings of survival. Always at the center of stories so strange you’d swear they were made up: sink baths colder than Siberia. Halloween candy funerals. Cheerleading dreams crushed under coal dust. Cats meeting fates that should never be shared in polite conversation. And that’s just the childhood highlight reel.

Now, are all these tales true? Maybe. Possibly. Depends on your definition of truth and how many drinks you’ve had. Let’s just say the names have been changed, some of the endings have been rewritten, and in a few cases, the laws of physics were given artistic license. But the heart of it? The bite, the bruises, the humor? That’s harder to fake.

This isn’t a biography. At least, not officially. If it were, you’d expect Evelyn to march through life in a neat, chronological order: birth, school, heartbreak, college, blah blah. But Evelyn doesn’t do “neat.” Her life unfolded more like a series of bar stories told out of order—some hilarious, some horrifying, all half-true and half-suspect. The kind of stories you hear at last call, when the bartender has stopped pretending to judge you and everyone’s a little too honest.

What you need to know is this: Evelyn Harlow shouldn’t have made it out in one piece. And yet—somehow—she did. Probably. She was built from bad timing, questionable parenting, and just enough humor to keep from cracking in half. A girl who learned early that survival came in two flavors: bend yourself into knots, or refuse to break at all. She’s tried both.

So, whether you read these stories as fact, fiction, or something in between, sit back and enjoy. Just don’t get too comfortable. Because Evelyn Harlow’s world doesn’t do comfortable. It does grit, chaos, and the kind of punchlines you only laugh at once the bruises fade.

Meet Evelyn Harlow. The girl who turned disaster into a personality trait and somehow lived to tell the tale.