The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things: Stories

I think a lot of people review this book based on the hoax. If we are only talking about the book, it is an excellent price of work. It's an anthology of short stories, but it reads like a novel because you watch Jeremiah grow up. Very sad, disturbing stuff, with some hopeful moments like when he makes a friend at the truck stop. The little boy loves his mother so much, but the fact that she is indifferent is what bothers me the most.

It's worth reading, at times I wanted to cry, that poor child was dealing with on going abuse.

At first, I found the premise of the main story hard to swallow. Why would child services hand a foster child from a comfortable environment into the hands of a biological mother who is clearly unable to raise her own. My mother, who is a retired social worker, said there's no way in hell she would permit that to happen. But then, she took her job seriously, and I have to come to terms with the fact that some people in the field of child services clearly do not care. Yes, yes, yes, JT LeRoy is as much of an invention as the character of Jeremiah, but kids like Jeremiah do slip through the bureaucratic cracks in real life. The way Sarah mindf***s Jeremiah scares him out of seeking.the proper authorities, and the repulsive characters whose hands he is shuffled between could be as real as the transients we hurry past in real life. One small clue that betrays the inauthenticity of the persona of JT LeRoy, and that would be his large vocabulary. For a street kid turned hustler, he most likely would not have had the formal education to know multisyllabic words. (Spoiler follows) Another tell, in my opinion, is the last chapter where I was left to wonder how in the hell a fifteen year old Jeremiah scraped together enough money for hardcore BDSM sessions. I can only conclude that Laura Albert (the true JT LeRoy) cobbled together the accounts of genuine runaways and hustlers with her own pure flights of fancy. One of the more outstanding short stories that follows the main story is…

This book is full dark. But the beauty in the writing is transcendent. This book is full of moments that are so painful they make you cringe at the idea that they could be real. But the dark is couched in an artfulness that is unique, brilliant, and unblinking. If Bukowski wanted to show Americans the things they didn't want to see, Albert, as Leroy, wants to show Americans the things they are desperately afraid to think might be real. There is an unflinching, driving rhythm to this work that forced me to keep reading in spite of the real horror it delivers. I loved this book, but I had to read it in spurts. Not because it's so dark, but because it rings so true that it is one of the few books I've ever read that is truly frightening and gorgeous at the same time.

I read "Sarah" and thought it was good at first, then it got nutty. At the time, I regretted buying this book at the same time. But this book started of GREAT! Until about the last couple chapters that is. Then it got nutty. I do love JT's writing style, but the way she transfers to different settings can get really confusing. I watched the movie (LOVE ASIA!) which helped it make more sense. Basically, it time jumps to yet another different, horrible situation the little boy has to endure. Will I read another JT book? Maybe. But I'll buy it second hand.