Sleepaway School

Praise

“Stringer deftly tells a believable, candid and vivid tale of a person scarred by his past.” –Publishers Weekly


“In a riveting memoir, the author of the acclaimed Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street (1998) goes back to his 1960s troubled childhood as a foster kid growing up poor and black in a wealthy white neighborhood in upstate New York. When his blind fury at a racist insult leads to violence, Lee gets sent to a school for troubled boys, where most kids are white and middle class and he stands out as the welfare kid who never had it so good. Told in more than 30 connected stories, the eloquent, present-tense narrative has the immediacy of Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life . . . . t’s an unforgettable coming-of-age.” –Booklist, Starred Review


“The most surprising thing about Sleepaway School is that it is not grim. In fact, much of it is lighthearted and free from bitterness. . . . [T]he reader doesn’t feel distanced but engaged, and this is the real strength of the book.” –Mary J. Elkins, Rocky Mountain News