JT Leroy Delivers Stunning Debut with "Sarah"

By Jeff Walsh, Oasis Magazine. Posted August 22, 2000.

In his first book, "Sarah," JT Leroy paints a wild vision of life using lyrical prose, fascinating folklore, and unusual characters. The book details the life of a lot lizard, which is the local term for truck stop prostitutes in this West Virginia-based story. From the moment you start reading the book, you are immediately swept away into this other world of prostitution, miracles, drugs, raccoon penis bones, and longing.

The lead character in the book has a tortured relationship with his mother, but still longs to be a part of her life. She is also a lot lizard. One day, he starts using her name, Sarah, as his lizard name.

As a piece of fiction, it is remarkable in its ability to ground such fanciful and foreign characters, plot, and setting together, but still make you immediately care about the characters, and pull you through the book at a feverish pace to see what could happen next.

"Sarah" has met with amazing reviews everywhere from Spin Magazine to the New York Times, and it is currently on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List. Many of the reviews comment on the age of Leroy, who is 20, and that a lot of the things that happen in the book are autobiographical.

"Sarah" was a therapeutic book for Leroy to write, and he's still dealing with a lot of the issues in the book, as well as how to deal with being in the spotlight because of it. He gets nervous during interviews, rarely does them in person, and even had other authors stand-in for him at his book readings, because he would be too nervous to do them himself.

The only picture of Leroy that is being used for every article written about him was taken because it is also the cover shot of Dennis Cooper's new book "Period." Cooper's book "Try" was inspirational to Leroy and the author has since become a mentor to Leroy.

Leroy only lives a few blocks away from me in San Francisco, but this interview was done on the phone. Leroy breaks the tension of doing this interview by immediately jumping in to say: "It's true. I am hung like a zebra. I'm sick of denying it."

When he answers the questions I ask, he is detailed to a fault. He wants you to understand what he has gone through and how he has arrived at the place he is now. For example, I began by asking him why we are doing this interview over the phone, rather than in person. I knew he was shy, but he said it goes much deeper than that.

"Shy is just an easy way to explain it. It's really complicated," he said. "When I was tricking, standing on the corner, you're standing there and everyone is looking you over like merchandise in a store window. And the only way I could do that was with a lot of drugs, and I did do that with a lot of drugs."

Leroy said he was rarely homeless and, unlike a lot of street punks, he never bought into the whole ideology of being homeless. He could always find some guy to get him a hotel room, and the guy he worked for also had a room. Leroy said that when he stopped doing drugs four years ago, he finally got a place to live. He then pauses, and proceeds in a more confessional tone.

"I find it very painful to be out in the world. I find it painful to be looked at. This is going to sound bizarre, but I can hear what people think of me and usually it's really bad," he said. "People look you over and you can hear what they're thinking, and even if they're being nice and smiling, they're still looking you over and thinking things about you. When I hear what they're thinking, and it gets really loud in my head, I can't turn it off. Even if they tell me that's not what they're thinking, I just can't take it. I don't like to go out in the day, I only like going out at night. I feel too exposed in the day."

Leroy said that he tends to cancel a lot of appointments with people. Many doctors in San Francisco refuse to even see him anymore because he's missed so many appointments. One time his agent set him up to meet another author he represented, Mary Gaitskill.

"We spoke (on the phone) and I really liked her and she reminded me of my mom, which was really intense," he said. "I tried to cancel, because I just couldn't show up. And I called and couldn't get her, and I couldn't stand the idea of her sitting there waiting for me, so I had to show up. So, I met her, which was terrifying, but really good at the same time. But, for the most part, I'll just cancel."

I quickly learn that calling it "shy" was definitely huge shorthand for what Leroy goes through. He said it doesn't make him happy to be this way, and it's not a great way to live.

Leroy said he wasn't even thinking about writing "Sarah" as a book initially. He has already written a book, which is coming out within the next year, which is more autobiographical about his tricking. What is now "Sarah" was initially going to be a chapter in that book.

"This one just happened by mistake," he said. "It just kind of came out, like taking a shit. You know when you sit down and think it's going to be a small one, but then it keeps coming and coming and coming, and all sorts of stuff that you ate the other day is coming out of you. It's like that."

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