{"product_id":"book-bhx9","title":"Whipping Boy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the Edgar® Award for Best Fact Crime\u003c\/strong\u003e\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, \u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e 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, \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\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhipping Boy\u003c\/em\u003e features two 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and  83 images throughout.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49345251901744,"sku":"BDbhx9","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio CD","offer_id":49345251934512,"sku":"ZEbhx9","price":45.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/bhx9-Square-cover.jpg?v=1776917641","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-bhx9","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}