Sleepaway School: Stories from a Boy's Life

Description

Contents; Foreword; Preface; 1 Three fatherless sons walking; 2 The thing is; 3 At the back of the lot; 4 My mother has a Victrola; 5 When the cops get to; 6 I do just as the cops say; 7 The next morning; 8 We're all in the auditorium; 9 It's a Friday; 10 First, there is; 11 For most of its history; 12 They are short one; 13 We're in the van; 14 My mother brings along; 15 ... Our day; 16 They took me; 17 All of us; 18 Every Tuesday; 19 This new kid. This Walter; 20 Red-haired; 21 Steve has pictures. Sexy pictures; 22 Curiosity and urgency; 23 I've begun to halfways suspect.;Like his brother before him, Stringer was surrendered to foster care, shortly after birth, by his unwed and underemployed mothera common practice for unmarried women in mid-century America. Less common was that she returned six years later to reclaim her children. Rather than leading to a happy ending, though, this is where Stringer's story begins. The clash of being poor and black in an affluent, largely white New York suburb begins to foment pain and rage which erupts, more often than not, when he is at school. One violent episode results in his expulsion from the sixth grade and his subseq.