{"product_id":"2940173579768","title":"Whipping Boy: The Forty-year Search for a Twelve-year-old Bully","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe true account of one man's lifelong search for his boarding-school bully\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEqual parts childhood memoir and literary thriller, \u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e chronicles 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. While tracking down his tormentor, the author 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 monocled 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 and richly illustrated work of nonfiction that renders a childhood menace into an unlikely muse, \u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e 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","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47179841569008,"sku":"2940173579768","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940173579768_p0.jpg?v=1763854572","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940173579768","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}