Exposed: How a lost boy bucked the system and found his voice

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With unerring wisdom and dark wit, Pulitzer Prize nominee John Wareham revisits the swirling inner life of a child with a crippling stutter, whose emotional, sexual, and spiritual journeys pass through rivers of despair in New Zealand, to a flood of enlightenment in New York. Wareham begins his startling memoir in New York, where he was asked to share "a few inspiring words" with a current crop of boys from his old school, Palmerston North Boys High, selected to visit New York. He detested the school and was conflicted, but decided to accept the invitation. But how much truth, if any, should he tell? He reflects on his 1950's school days as a boarder, where brutish corporal punishment was the norm, and a blind eye was turned to sexual abuse. He introduces the reader to the lost boy he used to be and the picture that emerges is literate and poignant, funny and passionate. The journey takes several extraordinary turns, as we meet God himself, and Dr. Mark Alter, the New York psychoanalyst John created for his novel, The President's Therapist. Finally - well, not quite - we join John in today's New York as he shares his "few inspiring words" with the touring Kiwi schoolboys. His cathartic message then leads to a confounding and suspenseful denouement, which holds the tension until the very last line.