GRAND CENTRAL WINTER: Stories from the Street.

Stringer, Lee. Foreword by Kurt Vonnegut.

ISBN 10: 1888363576 / ISBN 13: 9781888363579

Published by New York, 1998

About this Item

Later printing. In a tunnel beneath Grand Central Terminal, Lee Stringer, homeless and a crack addict, had created a nest of cardboard, blankets and books. And then one day, when his pipe was empty, he began to use the pencil he carried around to run through his crack pipe to write instead - and the result is this powerful collection of stories about what it is like to be struggling to survive on the streets. INSCRIBED on the front endpaper. Foreword by Kurt Vonnegut. 239 pp. Fine in fine dust jacket.

Seller Inventory # 64023

Bibliographic Details

• Title: GRAND CENTRAL WINTER: Stories from the Street.
• Publisher: New York
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1888363576
• ISBN 13: 9781888363579
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: FINE
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • African American Literature

About this title

Synopsis

A New York Times Notable Book

Whether Lee Stringer is describing "God's corner" as he calls 42nd Street, or his friend Suzy, a hooker and "past due tourist" whose infant child he sometimes babysits, whether he is recounting his experiences at Street News, where he began hawking the newspaper for a living wage, then wrote articles, and served for a time as muckraking senior editor, whether it is his adventures in New York's infamous Tombs jail, or performing community service, or sleeping in the tunnels below Grand Central Station by night and collecting cans by day, this is a book rich with small acts of kindness, humor and even heroism alongside the expected violence and desperation of life on the street. There is always room, Stringer writes, "amid the costume" jewel glitter...for one more diamond in the rough."
Two events rise over Grand Central Winter like sentinels: Stringer's discovery of crack cocaine and his catching the writing bug. Between these two very different yet oddly similar activities, Lee's life unwound itself, during the 1980s, and took the shape of an odyssey, an epic struggle to find meaning and happiness in arid times. He eventually beat the first addiction with help from a treatment program. The second addiction, writing, has hold of him still.
Among the many accomplishments of this book is that Stringer is able to convey something of the vitality and complexity of a down—and—out life. The reader walks away from it humming its melody, one that is more wise than despairing, less about the shame we feel when confronted with a picture of those less fortunate, and more about the joy we feel when we experience our shared humanity.

About the Author

LEE STRINGER's journey from childhood homelessness in the ’60s, to adult homelessness in the ’80s, to his present career as a writer and lecturer, as told in Sleepaway School and Grand Central Winter, is one of the great odysseys of contemporary American life and letters. Stringer is the only board member of Project Renewal who is also a former patient of the facility. He is the two-time recipient of the Washington Irving Award and, in 2005, a Lannan Foundation Residency. He is a former editor of and columnist for Street News. His essays and articles have appeared in a variety of other publications, including the Nation, the New York Times, and Newsday. He lives in Mamaroneck, New York, where he also serves on the board of the Mamaroneck Public Libraries.