{"product_id":"whipping-boy","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","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46226030035154,"sku":"9780062269492","price":19.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Kobo eBook","offer_id":46226030067922,"sku":"dafc12de-945e-303a-8d49-1dc95d37edcd","price":11.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_3505a760-138c-41cd-b7a9-477ec2838f21.jpg?v=1763230118","url":"https:\/\/www.indigo.ca\/products\/whipping-boy","provider":"Indigo","version":"1.0","type":"link"}