DNF

Honestly, I hard skimmed the last 60 pages (disregarding the seven additional stories not included in the original publication text).

It's not solely due to the fact that the subject matter is truly vile, and at the same time leaving me numb (I've been so desensitized by the worst-of-the-worst films and literature to be affected any more-so); this book is just not written well. The abuse is exploitative and repetitive in its savagery. It's an unrelenting Hell for Jeremiah, but one that feels forced for the sake of being ruthlessly edgy on the author's part.

This book is, as others have expressed, "poverty porn". Sarah is the white trash villainess to little Jeremiah's victim. Again and again, we are hammered over the head with: Sarah being a horrible mother and Jeremiah paying for it in the most violent of ways. But that's it. I never saw any much of an in between for their roles. It was always Sarah being a terrible person, and Jeremiah suffering because of it. It felt too much, again, like a contrived effort at keeping the story more despicable than the next-- and I can almost imagine this book becoming a talking point for many Brooklynite Hipsters: "I just read the craziest book. It's pretty hard to get through- you should try!"

The reason I picked this up was because I heard about the author's story, which was more interesting than this attempt at tackling a difficult subject matter. I wish I had read something else. Abandonment, child abuse, loss of identity... issues that should be treated with better care, and not made to feel exploited and false in an effort to generate a shock factor.

In the end, I am disappointed.
This book...
It's not edgy, it's phony.

This book and its author caused one of the great literary scandals. JT Leroy was a recluse at the start of their literary career, then they became a Warhol-esque celebrity and then they were discovered to be a fraud.

But why am I telling you all this instead of telling you about the book? Because actually knowing this makes this book even more extraordinary.

This book, supposedly biographical, is structured as interconnected stories, showing vignettes of the chaotic life JT Leroy. It starts when his teenage mother Sarah reclaims him from his foster parents and takes him along with her and her new boyfriend. Life is suddenly a world of motels and learning to love his new stepfather leads him into abuse and trying hard to be as pretty and womanly as his mother. He’s plucked out of that situation only to be exposed to a different kind of abuse from Sarah’s ultra-religious parents. Scalding hot baths, skin scrubbed into tatters and learning to hate himself and his desire to be loved even more.

I’m not going to lie – it’s too horrible and shocking to look away from. There’s a part of all of us that wants to gawp at other’s suffering and have our minds boggled by it and this book definitely feeds into that. But I think that feeling can be a force for good in the world, by seeing other people’s problems we can become more open and sensitive to them. And although, or maybe because, this is in fact a work of fiction it has that power.

The writing is extraordinary. To capture the voice of a child this young going through so much is incredible. Particularly as all the way through the innocence of that youth comes through.

It’s not easy reading – for goodness sake don’t read it when you are feeling like the world is too dark a place to live in. But when you’re feeling powerful and strong and ready to try and change the world, please do read it.

5 Bites



NB I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review. The BookEaters always write honest reviews

A very powerful set of linked stories about a boy whose teenage mother pulls him from his foster home and goes on the run with him. Gritty and hard-hitting.