From Publishers Weekly
Who would have thought that there were so many truckstop devotees of cross-dressing children in West Virginia? In this disturbing debut novel by 19-year-old LeRoy, they appear to be everywhere. The narrator, a 12-year-old boy, has renamed himself Sarah after his whorish mother because he has learned from her example that "Most anything you want in this world is easier when you're a pretty girl." Following in her footsteps, he plies his trade at the Doves, a truckstop/gourmet restaurant run by Glad, a despotic pimp with a heart of gold. When his mother rejects him, Sarah runs away from the Doves and finds his way to the hellish Three Crutches, a rival truckstop run by the evil Le Loup. Taken for a girl, and then advertised as Saint Sarah in a money-making ploy by Le Loup, Sarah is expected to bless truckers and then walk on water. Will these experiences convince Sarah to resume the life of a full-time boy? And will he discover that there's no place like home? Sometimes Sarah's masochistic attention-getting strategies and desperate need to be loved are genuinely moving, but the freak-show world LeRoy conjures up never quite gels. In the self-consciously bizarre gallery of misfits and fetishes he assembles, potentially resonant themes like the interchangeability of saints and whores are obscured, and the novel remains but a curiosity. (Apr.) FYI: LeRoy has edited several anthologies under the pseudonym Terminator. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Catherine Texier
For a first novelist, J.T. LeRoy is astonishingly confident.


The Village Voice, Lit Supplement, 5/00, reviewed by Jonathan Taylor
"Wildly imagined, but described with a quiet surenessSarah's considerable originalitytestify to LeRoy's wonderful ability to make up beautiful things."


The New York Times, Sunday Book Review, 5/7/00, Reviewed by Catherine Texier:
"J.T. LeRoy's deft and imaginative first novel is astonishingly confident. His language is always fresh, his soul never corrupt."


From Kirkus Reviews
Scary, sad, and way, way out there, Leroys picaresque debut novel follows a young boy through southern truckstops, where lot lizards turn tricks for drivers whose tastes run from women to transvestites to boys in jeans. Sarah is actually the name of our heros mother, and in the beginning they both work for Glad, a fairly nice pimp who treats his whores decently and serves them up to a not-too-rough clientele. But when the boy appropriates his mothers name and gender (at least in appearance) to go wandering, he winds up in the clutches of a really bad guy named Le Loup. The gory details of how Sarah is abused by this monster and his cohorts will come as no surprise to those familiar with Leroys journalistic pieces (in Spin, Nerve, New York Press) under the pseudonym Terminator, some of which dealt with his own experiences. Its disturbing to encounter a 20-year-old who knows this much about lifes seamy side, but Leroy depicts his damaged, degraded characters with considerable tenderness. Not exactly a laugh riot, but not as unrelievedly sordid as a plot synopsis might suggest. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


The New York Times Book Review
'A deft and imaginative first novel.' -The New York Times Book Review


San Francisco Chronicle
'[an] edgy but thoroughly engaging first novel...larger than life...comically Dickensian.'


Bookforum
'[LeRoy is] a hungry writer with the instincts of a person who fishes to eat. Once he hooks the reader he doesn't let go...quick, lively, and fascinating.'


Book Description
The national bestselling first novel by a virtuosic young talent.

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.



From the Publisher
"Sarah is weird, darkly funny and haunting. JT LeRoy has a gift, to be able to articulate his world so clearly and astringently, with grace and humor, but without glossing over the pain and brutality of it."--Suzanne Vega "J.T. LeRoy's Sarah is a revelation. It makes you realize how overused words like original and inspired have become. LeRoy's writing has a passion, economy, emotional depth, and lyric beauty so authentic that it seems to bypass every shopworn standard we've learned to expect of contemporary fiction. This is a novel gripped by an intense, gorgeous, yet strangely refined imagination, and its experience is unforgettable."--Dennis Cooper, author of All Ears "This book glows with perverse imagination and linguistic prowess. It hypnotized me. I couldn't help entering its magical world or surrendering to its desperate, comic characters. These truckers, their prostitutes and their pimps are on hilariously ruthless survival trips, but even so, they are full of humanity. The protagonist is a brilliant, resourceful adolescent set adrift in a world of grifters, and he is unforgettably touching and poetic."--Bruce Benderson, author of James Bidgood "Like a cross between Nathanial West and Mark Twain, drunk out of their minds and collaborating on Charlie's Angel's meets The Headless Horseman--Sarah is a wildly comic tour de force and a brilliant debut."--Mary Gaitskill, author of Two Girls, Fat and Thin "I am profoundly impressed by this amazing, absolutely brilliant new young writer, this J.T. LeRoy. His first novel is one of the most beautiful, shocking, disturbing pieces of fiction I've seen years. You won't believe it until you've read it. It makes Bastard Out of Carolina seem like a day at the beach. But like that book, it too is crafted from careful, perfect language and buoyed up by a spirit so strong as to draw tears from my eyes."-Lewis Nordan, author of Lightning Song "Jeremy LeRoy writes like Flannery O'Conner tied to the bed and plied with angel dust. Sarah is an exhilarating, hysterical and beautifully written disturbing novel. Whatever young LeRoy had to live through to write a book like this, we're lucky he's here. An off-the-map brilliant, brutally funny debut...'--Jerry Stahl, author of Perv: A Love Story and Permanent Midnight


About the Author
J.T. LeRoy was born in 1980. First published at the age of sixteen, he has since published articles and stories in Spin, Nerve, NY Press, and several anthologies, under the pseudonym Terminator. He lives in San Francisco.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The narrator, an androgynous twelve-year-old boy, idolizes his mother Sarah, a 'lot lizard', or truck-stop whore. Adopting her name, and pretending to be a girl, 'Sarah' stumbles into dangerous and fantastic worlds pocketed away in the West Virginian wilds. He hitches a ride to the famous luck-restoring Jackalope, is mistaken for a saint and must prove himself by walking on water. When he is captured by the malevolent Le Loup, his life is put in jeopardy until his cries for help are finally heard.

FROM THE CRITICS

San Francisco Chronicle

'What was William S. Burroughs up to at the age of 20? Perhaps turning out the kind of prose that graces the pages of Sarah, [an] edgy but thoroughly engaging first novel...larger than life...comically Dickensian.'

New York Times Book Review

'A deft and imaginative first novel.'

Bookforum

'[LeRoy is] a hungry writer with the instincts of a person who fishes to eat. Once he hooks the reader he doesn't let go...quick

LA Style

'Never can I remember a debut this impressive, by someone this young...This is a writer to watch.'

Publishers Weekly