The String People
The Sting People is a collection of twenty-eight unforgettable short stories drawn from Dr. Anthony Paul Sterling’s imagination, mixed with other tales of the author’s life experiences.
The title of the book and the first story “The String People”came from “when I was very young. My brother and I had only matches to make people that we played with. We were poor and couldn’t afford real toys. These string people became soldiers, cowboys, etc.”
From the short story “My Bald Head:”
“Early in life, at age 5 or 6, I told my Grandma Cheecha (Francis), who spoke only Sicilian, that I wanted to be unna Doctura, so I could listen to her heart and give her injections of insulin. She would laugh and hug me. I never forgot this woman who got off a boat from Sicily with her husband Paul and 22 children … The next major influence came when I arrived on the children’s cancer unit. What affected me was the number of bald heads seen in almost every bed; this meant that all of them had cancer and were on chemotherapy. I never got over this; I prayed, cried, and eventually shaved my head.”
Don’t Blame the Rats
Don’t Blame the Rats is based on the life of Dr. Anthony Paul Sterling. Part true and part fiction, the author’s story represents a compilation of his vivid imagination, gift of language, and desire to stir the inspiration of those who read his short stories and other explorations.
He says, “The characters are mine and mine alone. The child is my granddaughter. I wanted her to be recognized in my writings.”
His book covers his life in New York City from 1955 to the present day, as well as his experiences in Vietnam.
As for the rats:
“On the outside Detective Adam was smiling but on the inside, he was down: he knew some facts that were very disheartening: all female and male prostitutes in New York City were HIV positive; few people could afford treatment; many of these people left the city and traveled over many states and foreign countries. He also knew that a single female rat can deliver 15,000 babies in litters in a single year, which meant billions world-wide. Imagine AIDS being carried and spread everywhere on the globe! He notified his superiors, then called the ASPCA, CDC, Board of Health and friends at Columbia University. The bottom line was: we need animals for testing and treatment.”
About the Author
Anthony Paul Sterling, M.D., Ph.D., grew up in Manhattan, New York. He was the first in his family of three siblings to finish college and then went on to medical school, all on scholarship. He graduated from Downstate Medical School, New York, in 1967; did his residency in Kings County Hospital, New York, in 1968; and was drafted into the USMC in 1968. Now retired, the author was a private practitioner in Waterbury, Connecticut. His first book was Tears and Laughter of a Physician.