Whether or not all of this story is true, I don't know. There is a debate about its validity. However, I have learned that truth is stranger than fiction, so this story is not all that bizarre when compared to the rest of the crazy stuff that has happened. After all, look at Auschwitz, Dr. Mengele, and people like Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson.
This is a sad tale. As I listened to Pelzer's account of his mother's crazed behavior directed only at him (while he had three, then four other siblings), I thought about how many children had similar tales and did not survive.
The fact that this could happen, and that a father could allow a mother to do these horrible things to his own son, while a community could ignore (for the most part) the horrors that occurred within it. This boy's plight, full of horror, was noticed by teachers and reported to child protective services. He was raised in foster care from then on.
Not my favorite narrative style, although the story needs no embellishment to be powerful.
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