Shelfstealers

Two parents, unfit to raise gerbils, abandon two-year-old Georgie in the loving arms of his Nana, only to snatch him away when he's nine, when Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, everything is rationed, his mother is pregnant, and his folks are on the verge of divorce - or murder. They drag Georgie across forty-eight states only to virtually abandon him once again in the hedonistic center of the cosmos: Hollywood. There, amidst Satan's disciples, he struggles for an identity that has not already been claimed. Since his teachers are either under contract or observation, the streets become his classroom. He trundles through dirt-poor puberty to adulthood, living in an array of shacks, barracks, dilapidated houses, cellars and attics, with a cast of characters befitting any "B" movie horror classic of the time. With a strong desire to put distance between him and the squalid past, he answers the clarion call to defend The American Way. His two years as a military conscript get him used to three hots and a cot - his first experience sleeping on sheets and abundant food. In the 60s and 70s, cloaked in the guise of a famous Hollywood photographer, George S. Whiteman lives the Hollywood life he dreamed of - he photographs and designs album covers for the stars (Sammy Davis, Jr., Don McLean, The Beatles, The Mamas and the Papas, to mention only a few.) But the homes, cars, money and women can't heal the wounded nine-year-old. That will take years . . . THE PERENNIAL FRESHMAN is the first part of a three-part 'unauthorized autobiography,' The Jester's Court. George S. Whiteman's stunning coming-of-age memoir, THE PERENNIAL FRESHMAN, will be loved by readers of all generations for its humor and vivid reminders of times gone by.