Grand Central Winter, Lee Stringer, Seven Stories Press, 1998
This is the self-written story of how a person can go from having a successful design studio in 1980s Manhattan to spending the next eleven years as a homeless crack addict.
Stringer paints an uncompromising picture of life on the streets. While collecting cans and bottles for the nickel deposits, he runs into his old boss from his time in advertising. He explains what goes through an addict's mind while they're looking to score, and stay one step ahead of police drug sweeps. The police frequently go through Grand Central Station, rousting the homeless for criminal trespass, but save it for the end of their shift in order to collect overtime. A streetwise Romeo wants to make the prostitute mother of his child an honest woman.
Stringer also talks about getting off the streets with the help of Street News, the newspaper of the homeless. He rises from selling the paper on street corners, to writing for it, to becoming senior editor, sleeping on a couch in the office.
Lee Stringer has been, justifiably, in my opinion, compared with Jack London. Both are great writers, and both show the humanity in those at the bottom of society, because they have been there.
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