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My collection is miniscule; after an on again off again search of two years it stands at at a grand total of two items. I collect the nonfictional accounts of homeless writers, who, by writing about their experience, become housed. It's quite a feat to have any book published. These writers have managed to do it without owning what most of us take for granted--- a desk, a computer, a clean safe place to store paper. Lee Stringer wrote "Grand Central Winter: Stories From the Street" in the closing years of the 20th Century but the prose is remeniscent of Jack London's grim tales of survival set 100 year earlier. Part of the appeal of this book is the author's straight clear eyed look at the situation he lived in for years, he doesn't apologise for his crack addiction. He takes the reader down into the nest he created in the bowels of Grand Central Station. You're there with him rooting around in a mass of blankets clothes and cardboard, looking for the thing that probably saved his life--- a pencil. He lays out the sharpness and street smarts that allow the homeless to make it in a world that's stacked very much against them. And with humor. Stringer describes how he's hyper aware of the feel on the streets, how he sizes up social cues instantly. One day a well dressed businessman with girlfriend in tow crosses the Manhattan street and smiling says to Stringer,"Hey, buddy, I'm a little short. Could you lend me a five?" Stringer, without missing a beat pulls five dollars out of his pocket and hands it to the guy who's joke has gone terribly wrong. He's all embarrassed and to save face ends up giving the author ten bucks! This is a moving account of understanding a system and using that understanding to survive. It's a good antidote for the much more common tale of homeless immorality and laziness that one sees in the press.
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