Sleepers
- Book Review,
by Lorenzo Carcaterra
From Publishers Weekly
Carcaterra's controversial memoir of growing up in NYC's Hell's Kitchen and as an inmate at a sadistic detention center was a PW bestseller for eight weeks. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
A book with a punch equal to its publicity hype! Journalist Carcaterra tells with gripping force of his days growing up in the tough New York City neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s (the names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty). He and his three closest buddies engaged in petty crime until the day their tricks got out of hand and escalated into a major offense, for which they were sent to a juvenile home in upstate New York. They were tormented during their months there, not by other young inmates but by their adult guards, who brutalized them relentlessly in a program of horror and torture that included rape. Once out, once grown up, one of the boys became a lawyer, and through a bizarre twist of events worthy of being turned into a movie (in fact, the movie rights have been sold, with Barry Levinson lined up as director), he, Carcaterra, and the other two friends expose the horrible wrongs they suffered in that detention home. Both difficult to read and difficult to put down, this book will garner lots of attention, and as a result, readership demand will be high. Brad Hooper
Book Description
"Undeniably powerful, an enormously affecting and intensely human story."
--The Washington Post Book World
"A GUT-WRENCHING PIECE OF WORK. . . Carcaterra's graphic narrative grips like gunfire in a dark alley."
--The Atlanta Journal & Constitution
"In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembers harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaborate vengeance he and his friends exacted against the guards. He tells it all in spare, stylish prose . . . [with] relentless momentum and sheer drama. . . . SLEEPERS is a thriller, to be sure, but it is equally a wistful hymn to another age."
--The Washington Post Book World
"A TERRIFYING ACCOUNT OF BRUTALITY AND RETRIBUTION, searing in its emotional truth, peopled with murderers, sadists, and thugs, but biblical in its passion and scope."
--People
"SLEEPERS is so many things: a Dickensian portrait of coming of age in Hell's Kitchen, a terrifying and heartbreaking account of the brutalization of youth, a shocking--and disturbingly satisfying--climax worthy of the finest suspense novel. A brilliant, troubling, important book."
--Jonathan Kellerman
"COMPELLING."
--USA Today
From the Publisher
Every so often a manuscript hits the office and causes incredible buzz right from the start. I remember that we didn't circulate many copies of the mansucript, but as each person read it and passed it on to the next person who was clamoring for it, the commitment to SLEEPERS grew.
I will always remember taking my turn with the bound mansucript: I was on a Metro-North train on my way home to Connecticut. I was reading the most harrowing parts of the story, where the young boys were repeatedly raped and beaten and isolated. I was close to tears right there on the train; but what put me over the edge was a conversation I overheard at one point when I had come up for air. Several youngish broker types were chatting about nothing, and one of them said, "You know, the guys in my office are always complaining about how tough life is, how hard it is to make ends meet. I'm just sick of hearing it." By comparison to the experience of the boys in SLEEPERS, this smug bastard had life handed to him on a silver platter and it still wasn't good enough. Life was so good for him that he was simply beyond hearing about someone else's reality. That contrast caused the tears, and I only wish I'd had the courage to say something.
I should also say, and maybe I shouldn't, that while the movie had its good points, reading the book is a far more satisfying experience, tears and all. I don't think that anyone who reads Sleepers can come away unchanged. It isn't for the weak of stomach, but in the same sense that SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a tough movie to watch, imagine having to live through it. That's why we read, and that's why some of us come to publishing.
Sheila Phelan, Director of Circulation
From the Inside Flap
"Undeniably powerful, an enormously affecting and intensely human story."
--The Washington Post Book World
"A GUT-WRENCHING PIECE OF WORK. . . Carcaterra's graphic narrative grips like gunfire in a dark alley."
--The Atlanta Journal & Constitution
"In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembers harrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaborate vengeance he and his friends exacted against the guards. He tells it all in spare, stylish prose . . . [with] relentless momentum and sheer drama. . . . SLEEPERS is a thriller, to be sure, but it is equally a wistful hymn to another age."
--The Washington Post Book World
"A TERRIFYING ACCOUNT OF BRUTALITY AND RETRIBUTION, searing in its emotional truth, peopled with murderers, sadists, and thugs, but biblical in its passion and scope."
--People
"SLEEPERS is so many things: a Dickensian portrait of coming of age in Hell's Kitchen, a terrifying and heartbreaking account of the brutalization of youth, a shocking--and disturbingly satisfying--climax worthy of the finest suspense novel. A brilliant, troubling, important book."
--Jonathan Kellerman
"COMPELLING."
--USA Today
About the Author
Lorenzo Carcaterra is the author of A Safe Place: The True Story of a Father, a Son, a Murder. He is married and has two children.
From the Hardcover edition.
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