12/08/2014
Childhood trauma fuels an adult obsession and an exploration of a flamboyant criminal caper in this rollicking but unfocused memoir. Novelist Kurzweil (A Case of Curiosities) was bullied by a roommate named Cesar Augustus at a tiny Swiss boarding school—being whipped with a belt is the worst outrage—and later in life set out to learn what had become of his tormentor. He discovered after many years that Cesar had gone to prison for his involvement in investment fraud. Cesar is a marginal figure through much of the book, and when we finally meet him, his impact is underwhelming; he comes off as an evasive and self-deluding hollow man with a repertoire of pathetic shady business ventures. But Kurzweil crafts an entertaining, sharply reported picaresque centering on the colorful leaders of the scam, who bamboozled their marks by posing as monocled European aristocrats and produced a fake deed from the fictional King of Mombessa, and on the investigators who caught them. The psychodrama between Kurzweil and Cesar doesn’t have much emotional payoff, but it makes a serviceable hook for a comic-opera true crime saga that’s ripe with hilarious humbuggery. Photos. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Jan.)
Kurzweil does the delightfully unexpected: He morphs his story from a poignant memoir into a true-crime thriller.” — NPR.org
“Whipping Boy is like nothing I’ve ever read, an investigative memoir that’s honest, funny, sad, and edge-of-the-chair suspenseful. I loved it.” — Dan Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
“Whipping Boy reads like a European version of American Hustle…Full of intrigue and suspense, the story follows the bizarre twists and turns of one man’s journey to find and confront his childhood tormentor-ready-made for a film treatment.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Whipping Boy is much more than the search for a bully. Kurzweil takes readers on a suspenseful and thrilling ride.” — Bookish
“Pleasure-packed…makes the wily con artists in American Hustle look stuffy by comparison.” — Details
“A fascinating, multi-pronged morality tale about victimhood, skewed perception and the liberation of facing your demons.” — Washington Post
“A captivating hybrid of investigative journalism and memoir…Kurzweil is not simply settling a private score; he’s standing up for anyone who has ever been bullied.” — Chicago Tribune
“A memoir that reads like a thriller as the author circles the globe to find the man who made his boarding school days a living hell.” — Tampa Bay Times
“Kurzweil crafts an entertaining, sharply reported picaresque centering on the colorful leaders of the scam, who bamboozled their marks by posing as monocled European aristocrats and produced a fake deed from the fictional King of Mombessa… A crime saga that’s ripe with hilarious humbuggery.” — Publishers Weekly
“This meditation on pain and memory...only sounds like fiction.” — Library Journal
“I enjoyed Whipping Boy on so many levels. It’s wonderfully conceived and wonderfully executed.” — Ricky Jay, author of Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers
Whipping Boy is much more than the search for a bully. Kurzweil takes readers on a suspenseful and thrilling ride.
A captivating hybrid of investigative journalism and memoir…Kurzweil is not simply settling a private score; he’s standing up for anyone who has ever been bullied.
Whipping Boy is like nothing I’ve ever read, an investigative memoir that’s honest, funny, sad, and edge-of-the-chair suspenseful. I loved it.
Pleasure-packed…makes the wily con artists in American Hustle look stuffy by comparison.
A memoir that reads like a thriller as the author circles the globe to find the man who made his boarding school days a living hell.
A fascinating, multi-pronged morality tale about victimhood, skewed perception and the liberation of facing your demons.
Kurzweil does the delightfully unexpected: He morphs his story from a poignant memoir into a true-crime thriller.
I enjoyed Whipping Boy on so many levels. It’s wonderfully conceived and wonderfully executed.
A captivating hybrid of investigative journalism and memoir…Kurzweil is not simply settling a private score; he’s standing up for anyone who has ever been bullied.
A fascinating, multi-pronged morality tale about victimhood, skewed perception and the liberation of facing your demons.
2014-11-04
One man's search for his childhood bully, who turned out to be far more than that.Sent to a Swiss boarding school run with clocklike precision at the age of 10, Kurzweil (Leon and the Champion Chip, 2010, etc.) endured a year of torment, especially from one student, a bully named Cesar Augustus. Thirty years later, the author's nemesis appeared as a character in one of his children's books, an event that triggered him to search for Cesar, as he still remembered the pain and shame of the verbal and physical abuse he suffered. Over the course of 10 years, Kurzweil became a master sleuth and discovered that Cesar was far more than a bully. Using the Internet and many other resources, the author discovered that Cesar had been involved in a major advance-fee banking scam, fronted by the Badische Trust Consortium, which involved millions of dollars, fake princes and knights, high-profile lawyers and gullible clients longing for the funds to finance their dreams. Kurzweil explores his longing to connect with and confront the bully of his childhood, who had become an adult con artist convicted twice yet still seemingly intent on scamming people in one way or another. His story reads like a European version of American Hustle, complete with men in monocles and silk ascots, fancy dinners in expensive restaurants and his own methods of espionage that he used to obtain information. His fast-paced narrative, with its rich details of the intricate nature of the scam and his uncanny ability to ferret out the truth, almost masks his underlying desire to talk to Cesar about that year in school. When he finally does, readers receive a satisfactory ending to this 40-year drama. Full of intrigue and suspense, the story follows the bizarre twists and turns of one man's journey to find and confront his childhood tormentor—ready-made for a film treatment.
