Sewer Balls [Paperback]

Steven Schindler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

No balls? No money? No problem. Just have your buddy hold you by the ankles and lower you into a sewer, armed with a bent coat hanger. There are plenty of balls down there for ready for scooping. And odds are, a couple of them are perfectly good for stick-ball or king-queen. So what if they're sewer balls. Oh, and one more thing: You better trust the guy who's holding you. I mean really trust him.

JFK was shot dead. Oswald was shot "live" on TV. Girls were screaming like idiots over guys from England with long hair going "wooooh." And Sister Fidelis called the girls "tramps" right in front of the whole class. After seven torturous years at Presentation Grammar School, eighth grade was turning out to be more exciting than anyone ever thought it could be.

For best friends Whitey and Vinny, every day was an adventure into a new, forbidden world of hidden kisses, stolen beer, and songs sung by guys with Moe Howard bangs that made the girls get weird. Little did they know that each of those adventures would take them a little bit deeper into a fast, unpredictable world where fun can turn into tragedy in a New York minute.

Set against the backdrop of the Bronx in the early 1960s, Sewer Balls is a blunt, smart, quirky novel of how city kids with no money but lots of imagination make the most out of what they have.

Was it fun? Was it scary? Was it the best time of their lives? Fuhgedahbowdit!

Product Details

• Paperback: 285 pages
• Publisher: Elevated Press (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966240863
• ISBN-13: 978-0966240863
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,133,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven Schindler

Biography

Born and raised in the Bronx, Steven Schindler's first two novels, Sewer Balls and From the Block, are artfully gritty portrayals of the neighborhood characters who hung out on the stoops, playgrounds, rooftops and barstools during the crazy days of the Bronx in the sixties and seventies. Both books offer a heavy dose of mad, inner-city youthful adventures laced with awkward teenage sex, rock and roll, and the search for the perfect egg cream, i.e. the essence of life itself.

After graduating with a degree in film and theatre from Hunter College, he soon found himself acting in off-off Broadway productions around the city, including a geodesic dome in the Bronx, an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, a loft in SoHo and at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village. Bartering a deal at a prominent NY drama school to videotape classes in exchange for acting lessons, he discovered that he enjoyed life more from behind the camera than in front of it. (He denies that a lousy review of one of his performances in the Village Voice led to this decision.)

Enrolling in a video documentary class turned out to be the first step in a career that has spanned over twenty years in television production. From assisting "underground" video documentarians in SoHo, (Schindler's own doc really was underground- it was about an elderly blind lady who played the accordion in the subway, called Subway Mary) to catching criminals on the FBI's most wanted list for America's Most Wanted, to conducting exclusive interviews with The Who, Schindler is an award winning writer and producer who currently lives in Los Angeles. He has won four Chicago Emmy awards, and has written and produced news, sports, documentary, TV magazines, entertainment, promotion and reality television.

His third novel, From Here to Reality (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books), is a hilarious send-up of a transplanted New Yorker's foray into the early days of reality television in Hollywood, and received praise from Jay Leno and Roger L. Simon (The Big Fix)

Schindler's soon-to-be released novel, On the Bluffs, is a thrilling love story wrapped in a dysfunctional family mystery that begins on the trendy streets of Washington D.C. and winds up in a rundown mansion on the bluffs of Cape Cod. "Sometimes the biggest lies are the ones we live," Schindler says, referring to the characters who bring his latest novel to life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This story is a tragic funny beautiful memory of my youth, May 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sewer Balls (Paperback)

Do you know there really is a place called 238 St. & Bailey Ave. -- and I still live here. There is a Visitation School...The stumps and Pidgeon Park are still there... Steven has immortalized these people, places and events in a loving way. I can't wait to read it again

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read. "Catcher in the Rye" for city kids!, May 8, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Morristown, New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sewer Balls (Paperback)

Vinnie and Whitey take us through the daily challenges and excitement of coming of age in The Bronx. We get to experience the feel of a real neighborhood where people are respected for who they are and not measured by what they have. These fourteen year olds take us on a journey of "first's" that will send your memory reeling. If it has been a while since you thought about your first love, the first beer in the park, the first visit to Yankee Stadium or your first time to the St. Patrick's Day parade be prepared to laugh out loud as you read this book.

With great literary style this book will answer questions like,"what were the last latin speaking altar boys of the milenium really thinking about?...Why do kids lie prone in the street coat hangers in hand fishing spauldeens out of sewers?...and finally, why does every apartment building in the Bronx seem to have a maniac patrolling the halls with a baseball bat?

"Sewer Balls" captures the joys and sorrows of life in the real neighborhoods of New York. If you are curious about growing up in The Bronx or the Parochial school experience in the 60's this is a must read!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sewer Balls brought me back to my stoop in the Bronx!, June 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sewer Balls (Paperback)

I grew up in the Bronx, New York, at the same time that this coming of age story is set. I find that as I now get older, my heart and mind hearken back to the days of eggcreams and pretzels, and of hanging out on your stoop with a transistor radio tuned into the WMCA Good Guys. The streets, parks, subway and elevated trains were our domain, and we felt like we ruled them. The book Sewer Balls takes you back to a time when life was sweet. I am having my teenagers read it so that they can better understand me and where I came from. Anyone who was ever a teenager will enjoy this book!!