Product Description

The true story of a group of four boys brought up in New York's notorious Mafia-run "Hell's Kitchen" during the 1960s. After nearly causing a man's death, they were sent to a reformatory where guards routinely brutalized them, leaving them with nothing but an undying loyalty to one another.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47657 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
Fact or fiction? As you'd expect from a former reporter on the New York Daily News, this story of a tough childhood on New York's meanest streets is written in a muscular prose style which pulls no punches. As a boy, in the 1960s, Carcaterra and his three closest friends enjoyed running wild through mob-controlled mid-Manhattan. It all seemed like exhilarating fun until one prank went too far and a man died. The four boys were sent to a reformatory school where rape and beating were routine. Two of them turned to a life of crime; another became a Prosecutor in a District Attorney's office. Carcaterra forged a living from tabloid journalism. They were reunited in court when the two criminals shot dead one of the former tormentors and the four grown men joined forces to claim justice for the violation of their childhood. (Kirkus UK)

An extraordinary true tale of torment, retribution, and loyalty that's irresistibly readable in spite of its intrusively melodramatic prose. Starting out with calculated, movie-ready anecdotes about his boyhood gang, Carcaterra's memoir takes a hairpin turn into horror and then changes tack once more to relate grippingly what must be one of the most outrageous confidence schemes ever perpetrated. Growing up in New York's Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s, former New York Daily News reporter Carcaterra (A Safe Place, 1993) had three close friends with whom he played stickball, bedeviled nuns, and ran errands for the neighborhood Mob boss. All this is recalled through a dripping mist of nostalgia; the streetcorner banter is as stilted and coy as a late Bowery Boys film. But a third of the way in, the story suddenly takes off: In 1967 the four friends seriously injured a man when they more or less unintentionally roiled a hot-dog cart down the steps of a subway entrance. The boys, aged 11 to 14, were packed off to an upstate New York reformatory so brutal it makes Sing Sing sound like Sunnybrook Farm. The guards continually raped and beat them, at one point tossing all of them into solitary confinement, where rats gnawed at their wounds and the menu consisted of oatmeal soaked in urine. Two of Carcaterra's friends were dehumanized by their year upstate, eventually becoming prominent gangsters. In 1980, they happened upon the former guard who had been their principal torturer and shot him dead. The book's stunning denouement concerns the successful plot devised by the author and his third friend, now a Manhattan assistant DA, to free the two killers and to exact revenge against the remaining ex-guards who had scarred their lives so irrevocably. Carcaterra has run a moral and emotional gauntlet, and the resulting book, despite its flaws, is disturbing and hard to forget. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
The true story of a group of four boys brought up in New York's notorious Mafia-run "Hell's Kitchen" during the 1960s. After nearly causing a man's death, they were sent to a reformatory where guards routinely brutalized them, leaving them with nothing but an undying loyalty to one another.

From the Publisher
When friendship runs deeper than blood

Customer Reviews

Impossible to stop reading..
I am a massive fan of American History, especially the history of the mob, New York city etc etc

I saw the Sleepers movie in the late 90's, and it instantly made it into my Top 10.

I only recently purchased the book, and once I started reading it, I couldn't stop.

I obviously knew the story line before reading it, but the film just doesn't compare.... There is a world of detail in the book which just isn't included in the movie, it really adds to the storyline and shows just how close these guys were.

Unfortunately, there is also more detail about the assaults at Wilkinson's, which is hard to stomach, and left me feeling very upset. Okay, I knew what to expect and I knew they were sexually abused, but reading it just sends shivers down my spine.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loved the movie.

The boy who cried wolf
This book is a very enjoyable read that I really treasured at the time of finishing it but I feel differently after checking up on its merits. Think "Goodfellas" meets The "Shawshank Redemption" meets "The Sting" and you have "Sleepers". I have one major problem however. It has been proven to be all lies which makes me as a reader who committed myself emotionally to the story feel very cheated. If Jeffrey Archer had written this I'd say good old Jeffrey, he's come up with another barn storming story but I would have more respect for Frank McCourt or Dave Pelzer or even Henry Hill than Carcateria after reading this book. Pity!

Amazing. read it 7 times
If u like the film, read the book. I have read this book 7 times.
Each time I read the book I still get hooked and emotionally attached to the characters.
Yes, the book has a depressing and quite controversial subject, but don't let this put you off. The start of the book is about the boys and ho they met as children, which is probably about a third of the book, the time tehy are in the the home for boys, yet disturbing is balanced out brilliantly, and ends when it starts to get a bit much.
The end of the book is fantastic.
Is it a real story:? I'm unsure, if it isn't the author has either a brilliant mind or quite sick.
I recommend this book to everyone I know who likes reading.
10/10. By far the best book I have ever read.