the joy we feel when we experience our shared humanity
“Convinced that I'm not going to figure it out, bingo! something happens. It's like shaking hands with God.” —Lee Stringer
“Stringer deftly tells a believable, candid and vivid tale of a person scarred by his past.”
–Publishers Weekly
An odyssey, an epic struggle to find meaning and happiness in arid times.
Two events rise like sentinels: Stringer's discovery of crack and catching the writing bug. He eventually beats the first addiction while the second has hold of him still.
It was a magical evening.
Vonnegut and Stringer jump into the aesthetic fray, taking up humanity, writing, salvation, art, and the challenge of living, day to day.
Rather than leading to a happy ending, this is where Stringer's story begins.
This is an intensely personal, American journey: a universal story of childhood where childhood universals are absent and a chronicle of one boy’s struggle simply to be.
“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