A deaf woman leaves her eight-year old son at an orphanage, hoping he’ll find a better life than their hand-to-mouth existence. The widow dreams that Girard College, a boarding school for fatherless boys, will be his Camelot. What she doesn’t know is that emotional abuse, corporal punishment and pedophilia are the norm. And her son doesn’t know whether his mother is ever coming back, or if he’ll have to run away. Boarding School Bastard is the memoir of a child’s first year at an orphanage in 1962. Leavening the tragedy with humor, Boarding School Bastard reveals a world we’d prefer to avoid, but is too riveting to ignore. To understand how a child survives the loss of his father and the abuse of his guardians, this stunning debut memoir is essential reading.