{"product_id":"whipping-boy-the-fortyyear-search-for-my-twelveyearold-bully-isbn-9780062269492","title":"Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinner of the Edgar® Award for Best Fact Crime\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe true account of one boy’s lifelong search for his boarding-school bully.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEqual 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhipping Boy features two 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and  83 images throughout.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKurzweil’s quest for answers uncovers a story more bizarre and dangerous than he ever imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Childhood Nemesis:\u003c\/b\u003e In an exclusive Swiss boarding school, a ten-year-old boy’s life is forever changed by the cruelties of his charismatic and sadistic roommate, Cesar Augustus.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eAn Obsessive Quest:\u003c\/b\u003e What begins as a schoolboy grudge evolves into a forty-year international manhunt, taking the author from the gilded boardrooms of Park Avenue to the slums of Manila in search of answers.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eFake Royalty and Fraud:\u003c\/b\u003e The search for Cesar plunges Kurzweil into the surreal world of international con artists, including a monocled grand master of the Knights of Malta and a gang of faux royal swindlers.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eLiterary True Crime:\u003c\/b\u003e Winner of the Edgar Award, this is more than a hunt for a bully; it’s a profound and witty meditation on memory, trauma, and the bizarre ways a childhood menace can become a lifelong muse.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e is like nothing I’ve ever read, an investigative memoir that’s honest, funny, sad, and edge-of-the-chair suspenseful. I loved it.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDan Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e is much more than the search for a bully. Kurzweil takes readers on a suspenseful and thrilling ride.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBookish\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e reads like a European version of \u003cem\u003eAmerican Hustle\u003c\/em\u003e…Full of intrigue and suspense, the story follows the bizarre twists and turns of one man’s journey to find and confront his childhood tormentor-ready-made for a film treatment.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A captivating hybrid of investigative journalism and memoir…Kurzweil is not simply settling a private score; he’s standing up for anyone who has ever been bullied.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A fascinating, multi-pronged morality tale about victimhood, skewed perception and the liberation of facing your demons.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Pleasure-packed…makes the wily con artists in American Hustle look stuffy by comparison.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDetails\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This meditation on pain and memory...only \u003cem\u003esounds\u003c\/em\u003e like fiction.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A memoir that reads like a thriller as the author circles the globe to find the man who made his boarding school days a living hell.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTampa Bay Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I enjoyed \u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e on so many levels. It’s wonderfully conceived and wonderfully executed.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRicky Jay, author of Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Kurzweil crafts an entertaining, sharply reported picaresque centering on the colorful leaders of the scam, who bamboozled their marks by posing as monocled European aristocrats and produced a fake deed from the fictional King of Mombessa… A crime saga that’s ripe with hilarious humbuggery.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Kurzweil does the delightfully unexpected: He morphs his story from a poignant memoir into a true-crime thriller.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNPR.org\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888176656613,"sku":"NP9780062269492","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062269492.jpg?v=1730228335","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/whipping-boy-the-fortyyear-search-for-my-twelveyearold-bully-isbn-9780062269492","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}