Sleepaway School: Stories from a Boy's Life

by Lee Stringer, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Foreword)

Like his brother before him, Stringer was surrendered to foster care, shortly after birth, by his unwed and underemployed mother—a 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 subsequent three-year stint at Hawthorne, the "sleepaway school" of the title.

What follows is an intensely personal, American a universal story of childhood where childhood universals are absent. We experience how a child fashions his life out of the materials given to him, however threadbare. This is a "boy-meets-world" story, the chronicle of one child’s struggle simply to be.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was deceptive and crept up on me gradually. I find that happens sometimes with writers who very clear-eyed and not prone to exaggeration. Eventually I found the perpetual heartbreak the narrator faced to be building to a momentous feeling of sorrow for him. I can't say I saw it coming in the first chapters though.

[Karen]

Like his brother before him, Stringer was surrendered to foster care, shortly after birth, by his unwed and underemployed mother—a common practice for unmarried women in mid-century America. #autobiography #nonfiction

[Alisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to warm up to this, but by the time I got to the end, I was looking at the back cover to find the title of the other book by the same author, "Grand Central Winter."

[Lance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lee Stringer's Sleepaway School just didn't do much for me. However, I think it's a good memoir to learn from.

First, Stringer writes the memoir starting with the classic "how my parents met" story. It's a meet cute and decent love story even, except for the part where it doesn't work. Despite major hurdles, Stringer's mom works her ass off to make it work and get her children back from foster care. In what seems like a rare case in media, Stringer's foster care isn't horrendous, but his older brother and him are glad to be back with their mom.

From there, Stringer shows readers his early childhood playing outside with neighbors. The writing here flows in an overly mature style for my taste that clouds the childish emotion and perspective. This part of the book begins to introduce race issues that young Stringer sometimes does understand (like his mom asking about people being chocolate or vanilla) and other times when he doesn't (like when older white boys force Stringer and his brother to expose themselves). Here Stringer also begins to seethe with a rage born primarily from race, and his rage wins every time. Eventually Stringer bashes a teacher's face in with a boot and gets taken from his family to the titular Sleepaway School.

At the boarding school for at-risk boys, Stringer is introduced to a different type of "vanilla" people that he later realizes are seen as less than other white people but still above him. The school is a primarily Jewish operation with boys sent there and paid for by wealthy families, yet the place is open minded on religion and allows each to follow their own path. While the earlier foster care situation was surprisingly decent, the school has its expected scandals: bullying, inappropriate relationships, physical punishment, inebriated adults, and so on. That being said, most of the adults connected to Stringer at this point care and do well by him.

At this school, Stringer grows up. He and the boys discover and explore sex and sexuality in the real, awkward way that boys did before the internet. There's an undercurrent of homosexuality and an explicit rape of that kind too, yet Stringer and many of the rest don't seem to understand what that means. In time, Stringer "finds himself" through literature, writing, friendship, and being a leader. He learns to gain some control over the rage that beat him his entire childhood as well.

In the end, though, I was left wanting here. It was a decent story. It was told well. Yet it all seemed somewhat magical or coincidental. There's a gradual fading away of his anger as there's a gradual building of friendship, suggesting Stringer's larger problem was a feeling of isolation and loneliness. But there's little overall message here. It's a clear-cut portrayal of a childhood marked by racism and poverty. Stringer offers no answers nor even hints at suggestions for what helped him or should be changed to help others like him. Literature helped, including comics. That's about it. That's a solid little lesson here, but I suppose it's not the end, just as this memoir isn't an entire life, so there's no end to be found anyways.

While I didn't enjoy the memoir, I do think this would be a good read for many people that could learn from it. For example, I think readers that didn't grow up as boys in America would glean a lot from Stringer's life. The same could be said for those who never knew a world without the internet, making this a glance into the past for them.

[Amy Galloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a class but I was so taken with the author's story and style that I would recommend it to anyone. It is beyond "required reading". Stringer tells of the years leading up to being sent away to school and his experiences at a boy's school for kids with behavior issues. It is subtitled " Stories from a Boy's Life" and Stringer captures the mysteries of growing up among boys. It has many moments of sheer delight!

[JeanMarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant memoir of a Black child attending boarding an all white boarding school. Poetic and highly polished writing that makes you want to reach out and hold this struggling child.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an autobiographical look at the author’s childhood experiences as an African-American child growing up and then attending boarding school with mainly white children of privilege. The author is, in my opinion, a very gifted writer and his writing pulls you in and helps you feel and understand his pain and anger.

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We talk about ignorance and fear, too. Mr. Horowitz does, anyway. Once you have fear, he tells us, it's a very short trip to anger and rage." -184