By Rachel Brook

Immediately after the publishing of Lorenzo Carcaterra’s book Sleepers
in 1995, controversy arose as to the truthful nature of the story.
The controversy intensified in 1996, after the book was made into a
movie directed by Barry Levinson.  Sleepers tells the tale of four
juveniles who accidentally kill a man during what was meant to be a
harmless prank.  The boys are sent to a detention center for boys
where they are severely abused, both sexually and physically.
Sleepers  portrays this abuse and the ultimate revenge that the boys
seek and obtain as adults when they encounter one of the detention
center’s guards in a restaurant.  Carcaterra published the book
Sleepers as a work of nonfiction.  The movie Sleepers also begins with
the line:  “This is a true story about friendship that runs deeper
than blood.”  However, many parties mentioned in Sleepers were
outraged by the assertion that this story is a reflection of
historical reality.

After the publishing of Sleepers and the later release of the film,
various people and entities expressed outrage at the assertion that
the story was nonfictional.  Priests at the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Church and School questioned the veracity of the book and movie.  The
Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was particularly upset by the way
in which it was portrayed in the story.  In Sleepers, one of the four
boys becomes an Assistant District Attorney (A.D.A.) for the Manhattan
District Attorney’s Office, and he manipulates the trial process (with
the help of another of the boys) to publicize the abuse that he
endured while in the juvenile detention center.  The Manhattan
District Attorney’s Office denied that an A.D.A. ever worked on a case
in such a manner.  If true, such a practice by one of its attorneys
would clearly undermine the legal system’s goal of justice.

In October of this year, Carcaterra attended a viewing of the movie
Sleepers at the Fordham Film Festival and he was able to discuss the
veracity of the story in a discussion after the film.  Carcaterra
admitted himself that he changed the names and places relating to his
childhood encounter with the law.  However, he said that the remainder
of Sleepers  is accurate.  Interestingly, Carcaterra arrived at the
Festival with only fifteen minutes left of the movie, and he said
quite frankly that he would rather not view the parts of the movie
that he missed.  Also, when asked a question about how he copes with
his unfortunate past experiences, Carcaterra avoided detailed
discussion of his abuse.  His reaction to such a question and his
reluctance to watch the movie speak to the trauma inflicted on him by
the juvenile legal system when he was a boy.  He prefers not to relive
those awful memories, and he carries emotional baggage from that time
of his life, even as a 55-year-old successful author.  What is most
disturbing about Sleepers (and most important) seems to be true:  four
young boys were scarred by the brutality of the juvenile legal system,
and if they are still alive, they deal with that trauma every day.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Culture Forum Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.