Grand Central Winter

“From stories about flim-flamming clerics prying on the homeless, to the streetwise Romeo who wants to make the prostitute mother of his child an ‘honest woman’ (“I can’t believe it, [she] even charged me to go to bed with her on our honeymoon night”), to the manipulations of being on the Geraldo show, Stringer possesses a sharp eye for the street and the rich, sagacious talent of a storyteller.” –Publishers Weekly“Stringer readily admits to his former addiction and even celebrates its simple sweetness; you collect enough returnable cans to buy a hit, you get high, you crash and start looking for more cans. Like Dorothy Parker cradling a martini, he makes no apologies. But Stringer’s angle on Manhattan is not from a table at the Algonquin; it is straight up from underneath.” –John Jiler, New York Times Book Review

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.