John Freeman

It is awfully hard to write about a book by former prostitute and street hustler JT LeRoy without remarking upon who else is reading it. "Harold's End," his curious, exquisitely packaged novella, originally published in McSweeney's, arrives now in book form with the stamp of approval of John Waters ("savagely authentic"), Lou Reed ("few writers have his heart and courage"), and Nan Goldin ("knowing he's in the world makes it easier for me to live."), among others. If you are the kind of person who listens to what these people have to say about books, then the emotional pornography of "Harold's End" might titillate the hell out of you.

If not, then you'll probably wonder what all the fuss is about. Even bulked out by an earnest introduction by Dave Eggers, an afterward by LeRoy's editor, and some haunting drawings by Australian artist Cherry Hood, "Harold's End" feels decidedly slim. The story goes as follows. An unnamed teenage heroin addict meets a rich patron who makes pets out of San Francisco street urchins. Needy but wary of surrogate father figures, the narrator allows this man to adopt him and ply him with really good H. He also accepts the gift of a snail, the Harold of the book's title. And then things begin to go downhill.

In spite of the celebrities haranguing us to treat him like Joyce, sentence by sentence LeRoy is not an especially crafty writer. There is not a single metaphor or image of note in the entire book. Instead, it is the story's primitive quality that is supposed to appeal. To a certain degree it does; if "Pickwick Papers" were published today it might have the spiritual vacancy of "Harold' End." But LeRoy is no Dickens. And you get the sense London's portly scribe of yore would have had little patience for the creepy voyeurism that has made LeRoy's career such a grim spectacle.

Harold's End

By JT LeRoy

Last Gasp, $19.95, 98 pages

(2005-02-08)

Also by John Freeman

Nonfiction Review
In March, the U.S. government released five British men from Guantánamo Bay after holding them for nearly three years
(2004-12-21)

Poetry Review
Jean Valentine made her poetic debut in 1965 with a book called "Dream Barker," a title that aptly bugled the arrival of a sensibility unlike any other in American letters
(2004-12-07)

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