"Allen, I’m sitting on a bus commuting to my job in NYC, shattered by your Cesar story. 50 years into a search for a middle school teacher whose mastery of psychological taunting and abuse -- I learned years later -- shattered the esteem of generations of kids. I simply had to tell you that, from the first paragraph of ‘Whipping Boy,’ I marveled at the discovery of just how harrowing and powerful a writer can be when he is disciplined enough to let the power emerge naturally in matter of fact prose. Thank you."
S.H.