About this item
"The true account of one boy's lifelong search for his boarding-school bully.Equal parts childhood memoir and literary thriller, Whipping Boy chronicles prize-winning author Allen Kurzweil's search for his twelve-year-old nemesis, a bully named Cesar Augustus. The obsessive inquiry, which spans some forty years, takes Kurzweil all over the world, from a Swiss boarding school (where he endures horrifying cruelty) to the slums of Manila, from the Park Avenue boardroom of the world's largest law firm to a federal prison camp in Southern California.While hunting down his tormentor, Kurzweil encounters an improbable cast of characters that includes an elocution teacher with ill-fitting dentures, a gang of faux royal swindlers, a crime investigator "with paper in his blood," and a onocled grand master of the Knights of Malta. Yet for all its global exoticism and comic exuberance, Kurzweil's riveting account is, at its core, a heartfelt and suspenseful narrative about the "parallel lives" of a victim and his abuser.A scrupulously researched work of nonfiction that renders a childhood menace into an unlikely muse, Whipping Boy is much more than a tale of karmic retribution; it is a poignant meditation on loss, memory, and mourning, a surreal odyssey born out of suffering, nourished by rancor, tempered by wit, and resolved, unexpectedly, in a breathtaking act of personal courage.Whipping Boy features two 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 83 images throughout"--"From the acclaimed author of A CASE OF CURIOSITIES, Allen Kurzweil's stranger-than-fiction "investigative memoir", detailing his 40-year-search for his boarding school bully who tied him up at the age of twelve and whipped him to the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar, and who went on to lead a mad-cap life of international crime and financial fraud"--
About the Author
From www.allenkurzweil.com..."Allen Kurzweil is an editor and inventor, but mostly he writes fiction. His novels for adults include A CASE OF CURIOSITIES and THE GRAND COMPLICATION. He has also written two popular chapter books for children: LEON AND THE SPITTING IMAGE and LEON AND THE CHAMPION CHIP. In 2003, Allen teamed up with his 9-year-son Max to explore the scientific potential of the potato chip. That collaboration resulted in publication of POTATO CHIP SCIENCE, an award-winning eco-friendly kit that comes packaged inside a potato chip bag. Honored for his writing in Europe and the United States, Allen Kurzweil currently lives in Rhode Island, where he is a fellow at the John Carter Brown Library and a board member of the Providence Athenaeum."For more information, visit allenkurzweil.com and potatochipscience.com.
