Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street - Softcover

Peter Blauner

bestselling author of "The Intruder" and "Slow Motion Riot"

If Lee Stringer had merely been to hell and back, it would be admirable....But what he's done is for more impressive: He's made the trip with style. He writes with clear-eyed compassion, savage grace, and wrenching honesty. Oh yes, he's also very funny.

"The New York Times Book Review"

The prose lengthens out into easy strides, the storytelling is sound and the characters fresh.

"Booklist"

Stringer's crisp detail, straight no-chaser wit, and uncompromising frankness are as bracing as his subject is significant.

"The New York Times Book Review"

Stringer gives us the long view of New York's underbelly, born of pain but delivered with style and heart.

"Publishers Weekly"

[A] candid, sad, yet upbeat memoir....Stringer possesses a sharp eye for the street and the rich, sagacious talent of a storyteller.

"Library Journal"

The book gives full humanity to its troubled characters and homes in on the motivations, strategies, and relationships of people surviving on the streets....Highly recommended.

"New York Daily News"

Stringer weaves his gritty scenes with fluid commentary on how things work and what they mean, in language that combines the punch of the streets with the ideas of a careful thinker.

"The New York Times Book Review"The prose lengthens out into easy strides, the storytelling is sound and the characters fresh.

"Booklist"Stringer's crisp detail, straight no-chaser wit, and uncompromising frankness are as bracing as his subject is significant.

"The New York Times Book Review"Stringer gives us the long view of New York's underbelly, born of pain but delivered with style and heart.

In the underground tunnels below Grand Central Terminal, Lee Stringer -- homeless and drug-addicted over the course of eleven years -- found a pencil to run through his crack pipe. One day, he used it to write. Soon, writing became a habit that won out over drugs. And soon, Lee Stringer had created one of the most powerful urban memoirs of our time. With humane wisdom and a biting wit, Lee Stringer chronicles the unraveling of his seemingly secure existence as a marketing executive, and his odyssey of survival on the streets of New York City. Whether he is portraying "God's corner," as he calls 42nd Street, or his friend Suzi, a hooker and "past-due tourist" whose infant he sometimes baby-sits; whether he recounts taking shelter underneath Grand Central by night and collecting cans by day, or making a living hawking Street News on the subway, Lee Stringer conveys the vitality and complexity of a down-and-out life. Rich with small acts of kindness, humor, and even heroism amid violence and desperation, Grand Central Winter offers a touching portrait of our shared humanity.