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A review by whogivesabook
Sarah by J.T. LeRoy
2.0
If you're interested in transgressive literature, you can't skip LeRoy. Laura Albert manages to do insane things with the pen name.
I first read Harold's End in 2007 or 2008. That novella follows a young heroin addict who's befriended by Larry, an older man, from whom he receives an unusual pet.
Long before discovering LeRoy I read Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. They reminded me a lot of each other. A running theme of childhood exploitation by older men.
Sarah is narrated by a nameless boy whose mother Sarah is a lot lizard: a prostitute who works the truck stops in West Virginia. She's neglectful and eventually abandons him, yet he longs for her love and tries to follow in her world, working for a pimp who specializes in "boy-girls".
In my work we have a special section at the end of biographies that we call 'painful lives' - it's really just a shortcut for customers who want to read about child abuse and murdered kids... This book was the fiction equivalent.
The novel really skillfully explores the theme of parental validation and the desperate search for a template for the concept of love and a loving relationship. In the book that schema is wholly awry.
I can't say I'm a fan of the brutality of the subject matter because I don't see a deeper purpose behind it. It just seems a little bit gratuitous. The book lacks any great depth. I prefer my books to have a message behind them rather than just be a wild ride.
As for the persona controversy. I don't get it. If you're a product of the early internet you always had a handle. These days I write under 27 different names. I'm currently reading Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet and he used a semi-heteronym himself.
I first read Harold's End in 2007 or 2008. That novella follows a young heroin addict who's befriended by Larry, an older man, from whom he receives an unusual pet.
Long before discovering LeRoy I read Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. They reminded me a lot of each other. A running theme of childhood exploitation by older men.
Sarah is narrated by a nameless boy whose mother Sarah is a lot lizard: a prostitute who works the truck stops in West Virginia. She's neglectful and eventually abandons him, yet he longs for her love and tries to follow in her world, working for a pimp who specializes in "boy-girls".
In my work we have a special section at the end of biographies that we call 'painful lives' - it's really just a shortcut for customers who want to read about child abuse and murdered kids... This book was the fiction equivalent.
The novel really skillfully explores the theme of parental validation and the desperate search for a template for the concept of love and a loving relationship. In the book that schema is wholly awry.
I can't say I'm a fan of the brutality of the subject matter because I don't see a deeper purpose behind it. It just seems a little bit gratuitous. The book lacks any great depth. I prefer my books to have a message behind them rather than just be a wild ride.
As for the persona controversy. I don't get it. If you're a product of the early internet you always had a handle. These days I write under 27 different names. I'm currently reading Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet and he used a semi-heteronym himself.