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Providence-Based Allen Kurzweil Recounts 40-Year Search For Childhood Bully
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"I want to disclose that I have some personal interest in this story. When I was a kid, I lived in Europe. And for five years, I attended a boarding school in the Swiss Alps called Aiglon College. It was a British school with some old-fashioned ideas about discipline and building character. It was set in a mountain village high above Lake Geneva with dramatic views across the Rhone Valley of jagged Alpine peaks and glaciers.
The setting was spectacular, and the school was kind of wonderful but also complicated. So, I was particularly interested in a new memoir by writer Allen Kurzweil, who also attended Aiglon back in 1971, when I was there.
Kurzweil’s memoir details his 40-year search for a bully — his former roommate at the school. What happened to Kurzweil — who now lives in Providence, Rhode Island — at Aiglon, why it haunted him for so long and what he learned about his bully and himself during his long search are all part of this powerful story."
--Anthony Brooks
Guest
Allen Kurzweil, novelist, journalist, teacher, and inventor. His new book is called, "Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully." He tweets @AllenKurzweil.
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WBUR: Finding A Childhood Bully, And So Much More, In 'Whipping Boy'
- "In 1971, 10-year-old Allen Kurzweil was a new student — the youngest — at a boarding school in Switzerland. He had a problem. A problem named Cesar Augustus."
- "In 1971, I met a boy who changed my life forever. I was ten and he was twelve when, for a few indelible months, we roomed together in a British-style boarding school perched on an alpine meadow high above Geneva."
This article was originally published on January 19, 2015.
This segment aired on January 19, 2015.