Sarah

by J.T. LeRoy

Cherry Vanilla, twelve years old with a penchant for short leather skirts and make-up, has one dream: to become the most famous 'lot lizard', or truck stop whore, in the business. With his blond curls and his naked ambition he is determined to be more woman than most, and to match his idol, rival, and mother, Sarah. Adopting her name and sex, he heads off into the dangerous and fantastic worlds pocketed away in the West Virginian wilds. On his journey for fame he meets with sinister pimps, luck-restoring Jack-a-lopes, superstitious prostitutes who take him for a saint, and a host of bizarre and beautiful outcasts that make up his unusual, heartbreaking world.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Novels, The United States Of America, American

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2000

About the author

Laura Victoria Albert is the author of writings that include works credited to the fictional teenage persona of JT LeRoy, a long-running literary hoax in which LeRoy was presented to the public and publishers as a gender-variant, sexually questioning, abused, former homeless drug addict and male prostitute. Albert described LeRoy as an “avatar” rather than a “hoax,” and claimed that she was able to write things as LeRoy that she could not have said as Laura Albert. Albert was raised in Brooklyn, and she and her former partner Geoffrey Knoop have a young son. She has also used the names Emily Frasier and Speedie, and published other works as Laura Victoria and Gluttenberg.

Albert did not publish her writing as “memoir” – she published her writing as “fiction.”

Albert attests that she could not have written from raw emotion without the right to be presented to the world via JT LeRoy, whom she calls her “phantom limb” – a style of performance art she had been undertaking to deal with experiences even as a little girl, according to a 2006 interview in The Paris Review.

In November 2010, Laura Albert appeared at The Moth to tell her story on video.

Laura Albert has also written for the acclaimed television series Deadwood. She collaborated with director and playwright Robert Wilson for the international exhibition of his VOOM video portraits, and with the catalog for his “Frontiers: Visions of the Frontier” at Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM). In 2012 she served on the juries of the first Brasilia International Film Festival and the Sapporo International Short Film Festival; she also attended Brazil’s international book fair, Bienal Brasil do Livro e da Leitura, where she and Alice Walker were the U.S. representatives. Brazil’s Geração Editorial has re-released the JT LeRoy books in a boxset under Laura Albert’s name, and she and JT are the subjects of the hit Brazilian rock musical JT, Um Conto de Fadas Punk (“JT, A Punk Fairy Tale”).

She has taught at Dave Eggers’ 826 Valencia and the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and has lectured with artist Jasmin Lim at Artists’ Television Access with SF Camerawork's Chuck Mobley, in conjunction with a window installation about her work. She has also written for dot429, the world’s largest LGBTA professional network, and been an invited speaker at their annual conferences in New York.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Correspondents, #1

Dear J T Leroy,

I am your biggest fandangle. I love how you wrote those two books about child abuse under a fake name. I love how you paid a boring Brooklyn writer to pretend to be you to make the shitty shit more real. When I was a child I too hung around trailer park hookers and helped perform fellatio on beer-sodden belliferous brutes. (I didn’t really, but hey!) I like how your books are written at a level children can understand and from the POV of kids, because if there’s one thing we need more of as readers it’s whimsical child-abuse novels written for children but read by adults and written under fake names. I love you! MJ is not my real name, my real one is Paul Robertson. I come from the small Highland town of Nairn where porridge powers pylons and our only entertainment is the Village Yoyo, which gets passed sequentially among all the residents. It isn’t my shot until next March! I am so bored I could cut myself! I write what the kids call metafiction but no one wants to read me. Do you think I should start blowing truckers on the side? I know my way around a ladycave but I have never patted a pal’s protuberance before, sober or otherwise. Perhaps you can show me with diagrams what to do in that area? I would probably die for you, but I’m not 100% on that.

Lovingly,

MJ/Paul

Next

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

The strange thing about JT LeRoy’s Sarah is that the story of the author is far more interesting than the story she writes in this novel - it’s almost always the other way around! JT (“Jeremiah Terminator” - I guess the name should’ve been a giveaway) was a transgender woman who grew up as an abused, drug-addicted teenage boy prostitute in the South and Sarah was her heavily autobiographical debut novel.

But after six years of this charade, the hoax that was JT LeRoy was uncovered in a 2005 exposé – the public face of JT was actually a fashion designer called Savannah Knoop while the person behind the books turned out to be a female writer called Laura Albert. “JT LeRoy” was a total fiction.

Then again it’s easy to see why Laura Albert had to go to the lengths she did to sell her books – Sarah is a very boring book that could’ve only been made interesting if you thought the subject matter had the authenticity of real life.

Set in West Virginia, Cherry Vanilla is a teen boy who becomes a lot lizard (a truck stop hooker) like his deadbeat mother Sarah, gets passed around from one pimp to another and that’s it. I guess the casual way truckers have sex with an underage trans kid is shocking but the scenes aren’t very graphic and Cherry doesn’t seem to mind, particularly having never known any other existence. I’m not sure what we’re meant to feel but the only effect it had on me was apathy.

Cherry is such a convincing tranny that one pimp’s group don’t know she isn’t anatomically a girl so when she mentions that she doesn’t bleed, they think she’s a holy saint and start worshipping her. I guess it’s meant to be a funny section? It’s not and the farcical period “joke” goes on and on.

There isn’t a whole lot else to say about the book. It’s ordinarily written, the story starts off directionless and doesn’t improve; even if you think this weird subculture of lot lizards and truckers has the potential to be an interesting backdrop, you’ll be bored very quickly with the blandly sybaritic existence of these sad people.

The story of the JT LeRoy hoax was interesting at the time – her writing never was. Sarah is supposed to be edgy and subversive and comes off as fake and dull. A boring, trying-too-hard-to-shock novel about nothing.

[Kirk · Rating 1 out of 5]

I doubt this book would have anything of the modest cult reputation it briefly enjoyed if it weren't for the myth of JT LeRoy that lent it some very dubious "authenticity." It's not that there isn't a compelling story here: mother/son dependency, sexual exploitation, transgendering---hey, it could have been something amazing had the author had any concern whatsoever for the writing and not in manufacturing a "legend" of a life story. But now that LeRoy has been debunked as a fraud, the attention this book received demands some accountability: why is the literary establishment so obsessed with "discovering" savants? Is its fixation with chic degredation really an act of compassion and social justice (save the lot lizards!) or just literary voyeurism? Why the belief that only people who've really lived that degredation can write about it? And why the hell would a real writer care about hanging out with Courtney Love, anyway? Even before LeReoy was "exposed" as Laura Albert it was pretty clear that it was never about the craft of writing, for there wasn't a bit of art to the book. As with so many things today, it was all about starfucking.

[W.B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have blogged about the whole J.T. Leroy/Savannah Knoop/Laura Albert controversy (read: literary hoax) recently and in the past. I find much of the chicanerie and lying resorted to by Albert and Knoop (to advance Albert's publishing agenda) to have been grossly offensive. A particularly awful component of the charade was the fact that Albert told writers whom she needed things from that J.T. was suffering from AIDS. That's really, really low.

That much said, I'm conflicted, because Albert has crafted a decent work of literature in SARAH. It's not quite as transgressive or innovative as her most ardent admirers might insist. It's more a literary satire, which seems to have a great deal of fun lampooning the Dickensian "twists of fortune" novel, and the contemporary Southern Gothic novel. This work about an aspiring teenage "lot lizard" (a boy crossdresser) who hustles sex in truckstops and longs to be as "glamorous" as his neglectful lot lizard mother, is actually very readable and surprisingly very funny. While one senses that Albert (a.k.a. Leroy) seems to long to endow her writing with the sort of cutting edges an Acker (now there was a literary satirist par excellence!) could give to her prose, it ends up being more like Genet's tongue-in-cheek's chacterizations of Divine and his circle in Gutter in the Sky. It's really not bad writing at all, but I suspect the curse of "bad faith" has tarnished the book's reception in many quarters.

It's a shame Albert couldn't have just trusted her own solid writing to have sold itself, and not decided to take her book's central metaphor about whoring so much to heart in her relentless manipulations of "name" authors and rock stars (see the Wikipedia article "J.T. Leroy" for all the sordid details.

Still, I have to give this book four stars, as it's compelling and the writing never really flagged for me at all. It's not a sordid book at all, despite its setting and unsettling subject matter. It's much more a book about hopeless innocence, and if you do give it a chance the book just might stay with you.

[Peter Monn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange. Raw. Vulnerable. A lot different than I remember from reading it 20 years ago.

[Maria Lago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hahahaha (eye roll)

[Ebony Earwig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the documentary on JT Leroy years and years ago and instantly had this put on the list in my head to "READ AS SOON AS POSSIBLE".

Unfortunately that was long before I joined Goodreads, and my short term memory is awful, so this fell by the wayside and never got around to it.

I say "never" but I've read it now. And have to say that it's everything I expected it to be and so much more. How is this not the template for every book going forward? So densely immediate and sensitive and confident. Really if you've not had time to read this in the past, and have only heard of JT Leroy, but assume you know what they are all about from the documentary. Or if you've never heard of Jt Leroy then I recommend the documentary, and to read this, or the other way around.

[Cat Baron · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got through this book twice! The second time I ripped each page into many small pieces. This is quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. Strike that, take out the possibly.

[Monica Lee Floyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear J.T. LeRoy,
Here are my thoughts on Sarah:
Your protagonist starts out as Cherry Vanilla. In the beginning she is a child probably around 10 or so I would think. She is desperate for affection and has abandonment issues because of Sarah being so inconsistent. She thinks if she becomes more like Sarah she will earn her respect, and maybe Sarah won't keep leaving her. She also craves attention from men because she has no father figure and their touch is the only thing that feels good to her since Sarah has made her slightly emotionally numb. She is a child looking for a magic fix to her life, as we all do when we are children. That's why she runs away to see the Jackalope. Being naive, she gets caught up with Pooh and Le Loup. At first she loves the attention because she craves Le Loup's approval. She slowly starts to realize the walls are closing in on her. She misses home. Her escape attempts leave her abused and mutilated by Le Loup and she becomes "Sam" and is left with Stacey. As Sam, she starts to lose a sense of who she is. She becomes both physically and emotionally numb. She regains hope with Pooh's news that she was in touch with Glad. When Glad doesn't show up right away she reverts back to hopelessness. Finally, Pie and Sundae come to rescue her. Back at the lot, Sarah is gone. Glad tells her she is not the same kind of lizard and the book ends.

As Sam, she learns that as a lot lizard physical touch will not always be pleasurable. She also loses her sense of magic because she sees through it. She is left emotionally scarred. When someone hits bottom and returns to the surface they always see things differently.

On a personal level, I feel like Sarah was an outlet for your own mixed feelings about your mother. Your abandonment issues. You hated yourself for loving your mother even while recognizing she was abusive. You wrote Cherry Vanilla in the voice you would have had as a child. Perhaps the arousal of physical touch confused and scared you when you were taken advantage of by men. Children often feel ashamed they enjoy the sexual arousal even though they realize adults should not be touching them that way. It is very confusing for a child. Gender identity issues are very common for children, especially children of abuse.

I think Sarah was ahead of its time. You are not the antichrist making up stories about pedophiles. You are a woman who went through sexual, emotional, and physical abuse as a child. You wrote in that voice and people freaked out. Perhaps it was too real for them to feel what a sexually abused child feels. They want to keep hiding in their safe little worlds. It's not safe in this world. Might as well let out the truth so you can heal. They will learn about the world eventually. Maybe you and I have just seen too much and want it out of our heads and on paper. By creating something good out of the horrible things you endured, you took some shots at the monster. It is commendable.

Anyway that's what I thought. We have a lot in common. I feel very connected to you through your words and I have been feeling very disconnected lately.
Sincerely,
Monica Floyd

[MB · Rating 4 out of 5]

When this book first came out, everyone was raving about it. It was touted as the true story of a boy whose mother was a truck stop hooker and drug addict, who groomed him to work in the "family business" at a very young age. It's haunting and beautifully written. Once you read it, you can't forget it.

JT Leroy became an instant celebrity. Everyone wanted to interview him, and because of his strange upbringing, he felt more comfortable dressing as a girl during his appearances. No problem there, except for the fact that he WAS a girl. He fooled everyone-- Tom Waits, Gus Van Sant, musicians and many literary biggies took him under their wings.

JT Leroy is actually a woman named Laura Albert. She did the writing, and her friend Savannah Knoop made the public appearances. It was all a huge hoax, which is kind of a shame, because the book would probably stand on its own as a great work of fiction. But talk about a great marketing stunt. It took almost ten years to uncover the deception. I doubt that this would work after the whole James Frey debacle, but you know, I don't feel all that cheated. It's still a really great read.

[JK · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so excited about reading this. It just seemed such an odd, sick kind of book, with a cult reputation - the kind that particularly appeals to me. I had read that it was a semi-autobiographical account of the author's life, and this spurred me into acquiring the book as quickly as I could. However, it seems that the author of this book is in actual fact a woman who has never experienced any of these things! How fraudulent. I even skipped this one past other books in my 'to be read' list just so I could dive into it as soon as I could. All this was a bit silly, though, because I've ended up severely disappointed.

The plot is compelling in places, but none of the characters are developed in any way. When characters from the beginning of the novel came back into the story at the end, I struggled to place them.

I'm confused as to how anyone could have considered the writing in this to be autobiographical. Nothing in this book rang true for me at all, it almost read like someone's memory of a dream they'd had months ago, where they fill in the parts they can't quite remember with sheer hyperbole.

It's easy enough to get through, and you are driven to read on by the complete oddities you are exposed to. However, it really feels to me like a waste of good reading time, and I wouldn't recommend this to anyone I liked, and I feel like a bit of an idiot for being excited about it in the first place. I should probably stop taking book recommendations from self-appointed cool kids.

If you're interested at all in the literary hoax that was J.T. Leroy, I found the literary article quite informative. But to be honest, the entire hoax is almost as boring as Sarah.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Say what you will about the controversy surrounding the whole "JT LeRoy" thing, but I liked this book quite a bit. It had that weird, dark, funny, mystical, fractured undercurrent that is my favorite part about William S. Burroughs, it had a touch of magic to it, and the author really had the power to make you understand the sexuality of something you will (God willing) never Know (in the Biblical sense). It was also extremely short, which I think was very appropriate given the subject matter. And I bring this up for two reasons:
1. It's no secret: I like a quick read.
2. In the same way that I am in fact HAPPY to know that this is NOT a semi-autobiographical story of a Mr. JT LeRoy (I really don't want any children working as sex slaves, if you can believe it - sorry to all of you that were personally offended to find out that fiction is fictitious), I also don't need this story drawn out any longer than it was. I get it. I don't need anything more graphic, either. I get it.
So I say great job, and good times. This book sticks with you for all the right reasons, and it demands to be finished once you start it (besides being engaging, there are no chapter breaks). So check it out! It definitely doesn't belong on lists such as "Books I'd Rather Die Than Read," or whatever else people are wasting their time with. Just read it! It ain't gonna kill ya.

[January Embers · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story behind the author is 100 x’s more fascinating than the actual book.

[Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between the covers: Have you ever stopped to eat dinner at a truck stop restaurant in West Virginia, where dinner with the extended family appears to be Friday night out? Or looked out the car window while passing through the Blue Ridge Mountains and imagined an alternative life? "Sarah" paints a strange nighmarish dreamscape far beyond what most could imagine.

The dialect, dialogue, protagonist, antagonist, the characters and their relationships, the pacing, then the action. All of these elements are perfection. It may sound like I'm lifting this review straight out of a "Creative Writing 101" book, and maybe I've read a few. You can learn only so much about "writing". The author has, consciously or not, streamlined the formulas that create great fiction with the things that can't be learned. Spontaneity, deep empathy, characters that you can smell, feel, pinch, subject matter that balances between refreshingly original and disturbingly taboo.

This book has powers, too. It can turn your judgement, a system that's been curated for an entire life, upside down. ie- "All pimps are evil" transforms to "good pimp, bad pimp".

I want to snuggle with the sentences. They make the story flow like a river, smooth at points, tumultuous at others. Objects aren't described statically, but rather used in action. For example, succulent diner fare is used in a food fight, not merely described as it looks sitting on a plate. The prose is simple where it needs to be, careful not to call attention to itself, but rather used in the mission to tell a great American tale.

I am floored by some of the 1 star reviews that claim the characters are one dimensional, with questionable motivation. Are these "fake" reviews designed to degrade the ratings because people are disturbed by the JT Leroy-Laura Albert controversy? Fine if you don't like the novel. I get it if the subject matter is so disturbing it makes it unreadable to you. But the characters aren't fleshed out??? Really? Please. JT aka She-rah aka Cherry Vanilla evolved before the first page was even written. Sure, the ancillary people are lightly sketched, but aren't they in real life? The ones closer in are so real, silky, bristly, damp, odoriferous, creepy.

Outside the covers:
I re-read the book after coming across the documentary "Author: The JT LeRoy Story". I had read it many years before, and like so many people was intrigued by this gender fluid it-lit boy.

When the NY Times story broke that the author was probably a much older woman, I was exuberant. Not knowing the back story, I empathized with the need to hide behind a male persona. After all, whenever I had a dispute with a bill or bank or landlord, and I wasn't getting anywhere, I'd have my elderly father call. Problems were solved in minutes.

I remember Googling the real author. I wanted to know more, as many craved to know JT Leroy. Sadly I could find scant information and my curiosity eventually waned.

It re-emerged a few years ago with the biggest literary HOAX of all time. Well, okay, I'm stretching the meaning of hoax here, but it was a gross omission which is a form of deception. The author was Jonah Lehrer. He wrote a book How Creativity Works.

In this NY Times Best Seller List non-fiction, Lehrer cited "creative geniuses" and demystified what made them tick. What colors, how office spaces were arranged, la dee da dee da. A friend's boyfriend recommended it as a good read. I'd counted, but I'm a little fuzzy....He used 30 or so examples of geniuses, from Steve Jobs to Albert Einstein. Not ONE woman. NOT. ONE. WOMAN. An entire book, on the NY Times best seller, and I'm the only one who seems to notice this minuscule oversight.

A few months after I read it, the author Lehrer got in HUGE deep shit for misquoting, or making up quotes, for Bob Dylan. He lost his desk job at the New Yorker. That makes news. To misquote a man is a horrible to sin. To NOT quote any woman gets you on a coveted best seller list. It peeved me that the omission of an entire gender would get no attention, while Laura Albert's literary career was torched by mobs.

Regardless of the circumstances with how Sarah was created or publicized, it is a gem and one of the best books I will ever read. I highly recommend it for voracious or occasional readers, and especially for aspiring writers. I'm looking forward to this author's future works, under any pen name or persona.

[Maggy Eijk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The boy, through spit-wet eyes, told him a tale of love

My boyfriend read this a few days before me, closed it and upon being asked what he thought replied: "just read it". I did and I later found out it was the best book ever read. I quickly came to share his opinion.

Sarah is a first person account of Cherry Vanilla, a twelve year old boy, who wants more than anything to become the best "lot lizard" there is. In his quest to attain fame as a truck stop whore he leaves the home he has become used to, endures rape, beatings and a painful scene where his golden locks get sliced from his scalp.

I'm not going to talk about the hype/hoax that surrounds the author because I don't know that much about it apart from skimming a wiki-page. We found this book, second hand and the cover (a shabby looking barbie doll walking to a plastic truck) was reason enough to get it. The best part about this book is the complete and total world Leroy engulfs you in, a world I know nothing about apart from a few late night stops at empty petrol stations. I couldn't put the book down, you're so completely absorbed. Despite the dark deeds that are being done there is so much beauty, a grotesque kind of beauty but still, headlights, rituals, forests, saints and sinners. This is nothing like I've ever read before. Cherry is completely and utterly lovable but her fragility can be scary, the type of person you'd want to hug but at the same time you're too scared they'll break in your embrace. And then at the end, you remind yourself...he's just a kid. All this, and so young.

The best way to do this book justice would be to tell you to read it and please, please do.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A John Watersy take on transvestite prostitution at a truck stop in West Virginia--dreamy magical realism in (early) Francesca Lia Block brogue that is as much a tribute to the finer, feminine things as it is a brutal account of a 12-year-old sex slave. An entertaining few hours spent, to be sure.

I think it's lame, all this controversy over the basically fictional nature of JT LeRoy, the author. Of course it was kind of disappointing when this mythic androgyn turned out to be a decidedly female shadowriter, but really....who do critics think they're kidding when they say they took his (her) work to be autobiographical? This book is ridiculous--it features a high-speed truck chase complete with geisha-tranny shooting down evil pimps with a mini-glock, her heeled feet dangling from the open door of the 18-wheel rig. Pure fantasy. It's fun, but get your head out of your ass if you think some scrawny kid wrote a strict anthropological account of lot brothels in Appalachia.

[Lord Beardsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this book the second time around, I have to say I truly appreciated the dark humor as well as the magical, dark realism of the characters and setting. It's a book that stays with you after reading it, and overall I found it a thoroughly engaging story. I just wish the other stories that came after this one didn't go down the road of "memoiresque" victim fic. I appreciate the weird world created in this, and after reading it I felt that the following stories should have taken a more Poppy Z. Brite/transgressive queer Flannery O'Connor bent. I hope Laura Albert continues writing and exploring these beautifully dark places.

[musa b-n · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty bad! Would not recommend! Lots of cw's necessary

[Nicky · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only managed to finish this book because it is so short...

[Cheryl M-M · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an unusual but strangely compelling read. It’s as if the world of truck stop prostitution exists as a solitary planet in the universe called earth. To the so-called lizards it is the only life they know and nothing seems to be able to penetrate the bubble of pay as you go sexual relations.

Sarah, Cherry Vanilla or Sam are all one and the same person, who he or she is depends on the situation and environment they find themselves in. Sometimes she is the pretty little girl mirage, sometimes she is the raunchy cherry on the top of the sexual sundae and towards the end he is just himself.

For Sarah/Sam everything he does leads back to Sarah the mother and Sarah the hooker. There is a constant need for acceptance, love and acknowledgement. The neglected child resurfaces over and over again, despite the fact the mother doesn’t acknowledge their biological relationship.

A sleazy tale of abuse via Sarah’s johns emerges, which eventually leads to him working in the same industry as her. As a reader I felt pity for the behaviour he has to endure. He is so desperate for any kind of attention from her that he even misses the insults when she is gone. A sad little boy who only knows the affection of truckers in need of sexual gratification.

It is a bit of an oddball read, but I really enjoyed it. LeRoy is a breath of fresh air, albeit one that is tainted by the sordid world of prostitution.

Unlike many other reviewers my review is based solely on the book I have read and not on the bizarre story of the pseudo writer and the actual writer behind the pseudonym.
*I received a copy of this book via NetGalley.*

[Dena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very well remember the controversy around this book in the early 2000's with the unmasking of the hoax in 2006 by New York Magazine and the New York times -- for more information on the fraud/hoax about the author: http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/j...
The woman who sold the film rights to the book was subsequently sued for fraud and had to pay damages. And the woman she paid to "appear" as the author, wrote her own book in 2008. The more serious damage I think resides with both the transgender community and also the literary community. The woman and the husband who created the author character reached out to very famous authors, agents and these were looking for diversity, but did not do their homework. Now after reading the book and not sure if it was originally submitted by the author, who was again a white, straight woman I have to say I feel would not have been published or feted. The industry says it is always looking for new voices but they should be voices of quality and really be authentic. J.T. Leroy was a marketing creation/hoax that fooled a lot of high level people. In a word: sad.

[Kitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah is gorgeous and it deserves five-stars, sadly LeRoy rips this from me. He rips away from me any sense of closure or simplicity that I crave in a novel. As fiction, Sarah is well written, encapsulates the messiness of being a child in a horrifying situation. LeRoy does an amazing job asking the reader about nature vs. nurture, and also the notion of gender.

But I can't give LeRoy this, the second he published his as a memoir was the second that made this book impossible to like. By publishing this novel as truth LeRoy grants himself authority of the subject of prostitution and I find this horribly disrespectful to the real people out there going through this. When Sarah ended I was left feeling so listless, I knew these characters are not real, but I cry as if they were. I feel so robbed of this whole story,.., and I can't fully explain it.

Note: Although LeRoy isn't real, I'm using he/him pronouns from him to differentiate him, as a persona, away from the real Laura Albert.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing and fascinating with an excellent grasp on slang and mannerisms, but lacking a narrative that compels outside of the shock value. Not that the shock value is bad, per se, it just didn't feel like a means to an end. Some sections were a little haphazard, and while the characterization is the strong point, the actual plot lags behind the limited character growth. Pooh and Sarah/Sam's interaction is among some of the strongest and simultaneously weakest in the novel, with similar issues between Sarah/Sam and his various pimps. Interesting, though, and excellent use of the disturbing to find something resembling beauty in a putrid swamp of disease, whores, greed and Barbies.

[Sybil Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know a dozen or more former teen tranz sex worker run away juvies who love this stupid fugging book. I mean 20 years ago when this came out, now many teen tranz sex worker run aways had books.

Now In 2018 there is at least a dozen. Im pretty sure this couldnt have happened unless jtleroy and her lit connctions (no names....) broke that trail for us. JT Leroy is real and I know a few 100% dead ringers. I cant thank you for that, It's just not an appropriate time in this trumpity civil war slow pokalypse era. but I talked with the girls and no one wants to take jt off the tran heros list. as iconic as batman.

[SadieReadsAgain · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, what a good book! You know the type, you really want to get to the end but when its over you wish there was more to come? Sarah is that type of book. What a great story, I mean the writing was very good too, but the story had me sucked right in. Its about a young boy who dresses up as a girl to work as a truck-stop whore, apparently loosely biographical. I'm dying to read The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things now, but I'm trying to pace myself!

[Shannon Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

By far my favorite tale of teenage cross-dressing truck stop prostitution.

[val!!]

MY REVIEW OF EVERYTHING RELATED TO JT LEROY

In 1999, JT Leroy was introduced to the literary world as the male teenage author of the semi-autobiographical work called Sarah. No one knew what he looked like, as he only ever communicated via phone or email. In 2001, he started making public appearances wearing wigs and big sunglasses to conceal his identity. Leroy was considered the “new voice of literature”, as he was queer and his work dealt with sex work, transness, poverty and abuse. He became associated with many celebrities, mostly rockstars. But then, in 2005, his fame collapsed as it was revealed that Leroy was not a real person, but a persona created by author, phone sex operator and musician Laura Albert. She pretended to be JT Leroy on the phone and made her sister-in-law Savannah Knoop dress up as him for public appearances. She also pretended to be Leroy’s manager. JT Leroy is considered one of the biggest literary hoaxes ever (even though Albert swears that he is not a hoax but an “avatar” she created). This story has everything; really long phone calls, pseudo-intellectuals, racoon penis bones, white trash america becoming the new cool thing for the rich and famous, wigs, eating disorders, getting possessed by manifestations of your childhood trauma, and more! It makes you wonder how the hell all those famous people are connected like that. I recommend embarking on the rabbit hole on your own because I can only cover very little here. Also, I am not here to tell you if Laura Albert was a good or bad person for creating this persona because the situation is very complicated, maybe you should decide for yourself.

The obsession started with me listening to a podcast episode about it, sitting on a bench near the Acropolis on the first day of June, skipping class to go get french fries, and it ends today, where I wrap up all of my opinions on the media I consumed about it.

THE BOOK - Sarah is definitely the most bizarre book I have read so far. The lore is just so wild, from the raccoon penis bones to the whole black snake thing and the christian insanity. This is the part of the book that I loved, the worldbuilding. But, sadly, I had a very strong love-hate relationship with the book. While half of the time I was amazed by the story, the other half it felt really grotesque and fake. I almost stopped reading halfway, and was relieved I didn’t only a few pages later. I have no idea what to rate it. ??? out of 10.

THE DOCUMENTARY - The documentary called Author The JT Leroy Story tells Laura Albert’s side of the story. She explains the whole timeline of the creation and fame of JT Leroy from her point of view, and reveals things about her childhood that might be the reason why she turned to creating bizarre characters as a way to cope. Seeing her perspective is obviously already really interesting, but the documentary’s aesthetic and the photos and stories about Laura’s and Savannah’s insane interactions with celebrities make it a truly fascinating watch. 9 out of 10.

THE BIOPIC - The 2018 biopic starring Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart might not be very appealing if you are not familiar with the story, but for me, as someone who is obsessed with JT Leroy, it was quite fun. Some parts of the story weren’t included, which is sad, because a lot of those details are what makes the story so wild, but I suppose many of the people involved don’t want to be associated with Leroy anymore. The two protagonists were great, the acting was really on point, very similar to what I’d seen in the documentary. But the overall movie wasn’t that amazing. 6.5 out of 10.

THE MOVIE ADAPTATION - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is the adaptation of JT Leroy’s book of the same name, but I am going to pretend it’s an adaptation of Sarah because it deals with the same mother and son as Sarah. It’s kinda like a prequel actually. The movie was released in 2004 and was directed by Asia Argento, who also stars as Sarah. The story of the author is crazy enough as it is and the controversy made the movie unpopular, but there is a really serious thing that tarnishes it. In 2018, it was revealed that one of the child actors was sexually assaulted by the director in 2013, when he was only 17 and Argento was 37. So, obviously, fuck Asia Argento. But I believe that ethics don’t have anything to do with talent, so I’m going to be fair with my review. Not that that’s relevant after all, not a lot of talent was found here. I feel exactly what I felt watching The Brown Bunny, the only difference being that Heart had a plot, while Brown Bunny didn’t. My exact feelings for both movies are that the cinematography, soundtrack, outfits and overall vibes where cool, but the plot, the pacing, the acting and the director’s self-obsession ruin the whole thing. In Heart, the best scenes where the surrealistic, stop-motion animation ones, but there weren’t many. Overall, bad movie. 3 out of 10.

THE PODCAST EPISODE - Finally, the Missing Pages Podcast’s episode about JT Leroy, the one that sent me down this rabbit hole, is one of the best podcast episodes I have ever listened to, so I have to say that the obsession was justified. Very well researched and truly entertaining. It touches on many perspectives of the story, but mainly the publishing industry's perspective. No complaints. 10 out of 10.

That’s all.

[renee w · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

[Casandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Omg. I can't say enough about this book. The way your heart aches for the main character... The writing style was fun and fast paced. The plot was creative and unique. I didn't find it disturbing as many others have described it. I would describe it as reminiscent of Pinocchio, but with hookers and booze. I absolutely loved this book, and ordered The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (a book of 10 related short stories including one I'm pretty sure is a prequel to this book by the same author) immediately upon finishing. 5 ⭐

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally decided to read this much-lauded piece of cult fiction recently and I have to say I’m so glad I did. I can now call myself a J.T. LeRoy fan, folks.

This is the story of Cherry Vanilla, a teen transsexual trucker prostitute. This amazing story takes place in two separate truck stops in West Virginia. At first I found the reading of this book daunting because of the local hillbilly dialect it’s written in, but after you get through that hurdle, an amazing story starts to unfold before you.

Cherry Vanilla's main goal is be a full-fledged lot lizard (trucker prostitute) just like his mother, Sarah. When his career doesn't seem to be going anywhere, he decides to jump ship and take up with LeLoop and his batch of ramp-eating, extremely superstitious whores at the Three Crutches, a rival truck stop just down the interstate.

Once it’s discovered that Cherry Vanilla is actually a boy, all hell breaks loose. His long golden curls are hacked off with a switchblade by LeLoop and he’s forced to hook as a boy from then on. Cherry Vanilla soon spirals into alcoholism and sometimes huffing glue when he doesn’t have the money to purchase overpriced booze from the den mother at the Three Crutches.The end of this book then plays out like a cheesy, made-for-TV movie from the seventies.

After some time, word gets back to his home truck stop about the plight of their little runaway. Glad (Cherry Vanilla's original pimp) hatches a plan where one of his heart-of-gold prostitutes will dress up like a man, borrow a big rig and head over to his truck stop in a ruse to hire him for his “services” (and to secretly help him escape LeLoop's clutches). The high-speed chase scene that follows could be straight out of a Dukes Of Hazzard episode.

This is one weird and wild book but I’m glad I read it. I’m surprised that John Waters hasn’t made this into a movie yet because it’s surely right up his alley.