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48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Probably Partly True, January 14, 2001
This review is from: Sleepers (Mass Market Paperback)
I suspect that the first 2/3 of this book are true. The vignettes of life on the streets of Hell's Kitchen in the 60s ring true. The section on life in a boy's "reform school" is UNDERSTATED, if anything. In most such places, as brutal as the guards may be, the young thugs you are locked in with are even worse. However, the last 1/3 of the book - the trial - is at least partly fantasy. As a prosecutor, I can tell you that the trial could not have progressed as described. The key to Michael's strategy was getting ex-guard Ferguson to testify about what a great guy the dead victim was, so that the truth would come out on cross-examination. However, testimony about a dead victim's character is NOT allowed at trial (except in certain cases where the defense is self-defense - but here, it was not). In real life, as soon as the judge heard ex-guard Ferguson begin to testify about the dead victim's character, he would have cut in and stopped the testimony. I think that Carcaterra really was sent to some juvenile facility and was abused as badly as he describes. I think he wanted to write a book - a very shocking book - that would have an effect on the public's perception of such places and help to bring about change. But a simple autobiography describing the horrors wouldn't be readable, just sickening. A novel, no matter how readable, wouldn't be taken seriously. So he wrote a partially-fake autobiography with a gut-wrenching ending that most definitely has had an effect on public perception of juvenile detention centers. And I bet having his revenge, even if it was just fantasy-revenge, must have felt good. I hope so.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I didn't want to do anything but keep reading it!, December 26, 1997
By A Customer
Some people might say that this book goes too deep for a mere teenager to understand, but I would say the opposite, I think that many teenagers around the world can possibly relate to this, and that's what is so mystifying about this book, that this same thing may have happened to THEM. It's sad to think of it that way. After I put the book down, I sat and thought, with my tear stained eyes, about what I had just read. It was a little hard to believe in the beginning, could people's lives really be this hard? Then you realize, it's very possible. The lives of Shakes, John, Michael, and Tommy touched me. I liked how the author described the troubled life of each person and how he didn't hold back, he told the story with out censoring what was true. The descriptions, especially when they are in the "Home for Boys" haunted me, and I kept remembering the part when John is in Shakes' room, his tortured soul ready to give up. He had no other way out, and it's a shame he had to turn out the way he did. I think the movie did well telling the stories of these four boys, and the actors did a great job, but the book took me deeper, it described more about the life of a teenager in Hell's Kitchen, and the misery of innocent souls in a correction center they shouldn't have been sent to. I'm glad there is at least one book that can touch me in the way this it did. I think people should read this book because it will inform people of what really happens outside of their sheltered lives. (some of them) Lorenzo Caraterra did a wonderful job writing this book and thank you for doing just that. -K.F.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
YOU WON'T FALL "ASLEEP" ON THIS ONE, October 5, 2000
This review is from: Sleepers (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this was one of the best books I've ever read in my entire life. Perhaps I feel so connected to it because the four boys involved grew up in the city of New York as did I, although for me it was Brooklyn but what's a few miles. It also is about growing up in the 60's, so I can relate to the time period as well. But the absolute connection for me was the reference to playing stickball and using the sewer lengths to decide who was good and who wasn't. We played the same game but it was called punchball and if you could punch the ball more than 2 sewers, you were unbelievable. Carcaterra brings back many memories as he refers to turning on the "johnny pump" to get relief from the heat in the summer and using a "SPAULDEEN" when playing stickball or off-the-point. No pensy pinkies for these boys. This is the story of 4 boys growing up in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan. They have "no money, no summer camps, no vacations...nothing except one another". Theirs was the truest of friendships the meaning of which will never be betrayed by any of them. Michael is considered the brains, John the heart and Tommy the soul of the group. While Lorenzo never credits himself with any qualities throughout the book, he is definitely a combination of all three of these traits. He is also the youngest of the group and not yet a teenager when the story enfolds. They live their life with the Catholic church as their central point of focus and find a friend in Father Bobby. As you're reading this book, you can just picture Robert DeNiro in the title role as the priest in the movie. They do everything that young teenage boys who lived in the city did in the 60's -- play stickball, read comics, listen to Yankee games on the radio, trade baseball cards and play pranks on unassuming people. They never played these pranks, however, on those they perceived to be weaker than them. One day, one of their pranks proves disasterous and their lives will never be the same. They are sent away to a juvenile detention center called Wilkinson Home for Boys for a year. When they return to Hell's Kitchen after doing their time, they will never be the same. They are haunted by the 4 guards who were assigned to them in the home. Years pass and they are now grown. One becomes a reporter, another becomes a lawyer and the other two become killers. But, they still have one thing in common -- they will always be friends. They say REVENGE is sweet but nothing as sweet as what happens in this book. Needless to say, I was mesmerized by this book from beginning to end. As soon as I finished it, I rented the video and was mesmerized once again. I have since purchased Carcaterra's other two books and I understand he has another one coming out in January called Gangsters. Yes, I have become a fan. This is a non-fiction book that reads like a novel in the hands of a master storyteller like Carcaterra. I know there was some controversy when the book was published as to whether or not the events are true. For this reader, I could care less. It was a great story whether it's true or not. I will tell you though that I believe every word he wrote.
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