{"product_id":"9780062308573_whipping-boy","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":"Allen Kurzweil","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46900208959637,"sku":"9780062308573","price":46.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0484\/3175\/9509\/files\/9780062308573_d2835a42-1611-4183-be7f-b26516beadcb.jpg?v=1776888175","url":"https:\/\/harpercollins.com.au\/products\/9780062308573_whipping-boy","provider":"HarperCollins AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}