Vonnegut wrote a Foreword in Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Streets, written by Lee Stringer and released in 1998. It is dated May 13, 1998 from New York City.
Summary[]
Timequake, autographed for Stringer, 1998
Like Jack London, Lee Stringer is a self-educated storyteller. A survivor of poverty, homelessness, and addiction, he writes "grimly entertaining" stories of how those most outcast in New York City manage to stay alive. Stringer himself is always featured as a character, reporting on others who've lost their dignity and self-respect. While a crack addict collecting cans and selling copies of Street News, a weekly about people like himself, he found a new high in writing and eventually acting as editor for that newspaper, gaining a purpose in life, as well as a couch to sleep on.
By kicking his drug habit, he'd already be "a small-time hero", but also he's a superb writer. The stories are unsentimental, avoiding making either himself or "his wretched characters" at all cute or pitiable, as though he were a latter-day Damon Runyon. Instead, he is clinical about the "insane or idiotic" who are many of New York City's homeless. Nor does Stringer conceal "the hook of collective guilt, should we dare to bite".[1]
See Also[]
- Like Shaking Hands with God, two conversations about writing between Vonnegut and Stringer published in 1999
- ↑ "Foreword", Grand Central Winter, pp. 7-8.