Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #825210 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

A very over-rated novel...
I came to this book with high expectations, based largely on the many glowing review it's had over the last couple of years. But right from the beginning I was disappointed. The much-vaunted 'original' prose style is really not that original, but really IS quite irritating. The 'voice' of the main character is a great big muddle, simultaneously knowing and naive, ignorant and oddly well-informed. The plot is predictable and most of the characters pretty one-dimensional. Really, I can't see what the fuss was about. This was a book I couldn't wait to finish - so I could start reading something else!

STILL THRILLED AFTER ALL THESE MONTHS
I read "Sarah" several months ago, and the story still haunts me. The tale is wonderful and awful at the same time, telling about a sweet-natured boy who simply accepts a tough way of life. His mother, who had him when she was only 14 herself, often dressed him in girl's clothing and took him along with her when she serviced truck drivers. The most bittersweet part is how much he needs the love and affection that his mother was unable to give him. I also love the authenticity of the book, set in West Virginia. The language thrilled me. And it is so descriptive, I could visualize the scenes. This writer is extraordinary. I wish there were a sequel. I want to read more by author J.T. LeRoy. When a second book does come out, you'll see me lined up at the bookstore along with a lot of other fans. .

Reality and fantasy collide in this enigmatic little charmer
Despite having just published his first book, JT LeRoy has become one of those new authors who make headlines far beyond the literary ghettoes. The rave reviews of Sarah aren't just limited to his side of the Atlantic, either. Here in England, even the staunchly conservative Telegraph has lauded his first novel as a 'tour de force'. Sarah is a droll stunner of a novel. Set in the Virginian hinterland of wild woods and wild sexual diversity, the novel dreams its way through the life of the eponymous hero Sarah - a male/female prostitute, serving the carnal desires of lonely truck drivers.

The book never strays into the sentimental formula of the usual 'other-than-heterosexual' novel. LeRoy writes without the usual agenda associated with trans-gender/trans-sexual literature. He concentrates on narrative rather than clichéd politics, and weaves an oblique little fantasy that envelopes from the first sentence to the last. His is a world where an ultra modern, ultra savvy Dorothy enters a perverse land of Oz, surviving on guile and - despite the squalor and depravity he/she is forced to endure - a peculiar and endearing sort of innocence.

His ear is acute to the rhythms of the region he describes. Each character breathes a kind of fire from the page. The lonely and the desperate resort to all manner of subterfuge to disguise their predicaments, but their real natures come across in the delicate way LeRoy describes them.

What could be an unremittingly bleak little novel is peppered with great comic moments and a pathos that never strays into the mawkish. LeRoy is a fearsome writer whose reputation will continue to grow far beyond this debut.