Rating: 
Summary: To you, sir, with love
Review: I just wrote JT Leroy an email.The Heart is beautiful, haunting, and above all things, AMAZING. This story of a bruised childhood will leave you swooning for more of Leroy's work, and you pray to Godot that he finished up his work with Cooper some time soon so you can get your greedy hands on it. Again, AMAZING. Do not pass this up. I found it even more engaging than his work on Sarah, which was acclaimed to no end. Buy it. Buy a trillion copies. Bring this to the masses, because it deserves success. To you sir, with love, thank you for painting a portrait of such a black and blue heart for those of us who needed it, to see.
Rating:
Summary: heartbreakingly beautiful
Review: i read SARAH in one day and was in complete admirational love with JT Leroy by the end of it. when i found out that Leroy's only other book was one of stories, i was a bit worried. i'm not one for "stories"... i tend to want all or nothing. but i was so intrigued with Leroy's writing that i decided to try it anyway, and i am so glad i did. THE HEART IS DECIETFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS is so beautiful, it hurts. this is emotional honesty at it's finest. the stories read like a novel, yet each is distinctive and thought-provoking in it's own right. each character pushes their way into your head like personality disorder. the good one, the bad one, the child, the whore... you'll probably need a few nights alone, a strong drink and a box of tissues to get thru this one. and if you really want to torture yourself, listen to Bright Eyes's LETTING OFF THE HAPPINESS while yr at it. it's so worth it in the end. thank you JT, i can't wait for the next one.
Rating:
Summary: heartbreakingly beautiful
Review: i read SARAH in one day and was in complete admirational love with JT Leroy by the end of it. when i found out that Leroy's only other book was one of stories, i was a bit worried. i'm not one for "stories"... i tend to want all or nothing. but i was so intrigued with Leroy's writing that i decided to try it anyway, and i am so glad i did. THE HEART IS DECIETFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS is so beautiful, it hurts. this is emotional honesty at it's finest. the stories read like a novel, yet each is distinctive and thought-provoking in it's own right. each character pushes their way into your head like personality disorder. the good one, the bad one, the child, the whore... you'll probably need a few nights alone, a strong drink and a box of tissues to get thru this one. and if you really want to torture yourself, listen to Bright Eyes's LETTING OFF THE HAPPINESS while yr at it. it's so worth it in the end. thank you JT, i can't wait for the next one.
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: I read this book in less than 24 hours. His writing style flows so effortlessly that you forget your reading a book. I need to re-read it to figure out how he did it! It's a hardcore book, but a must-read also. I recommend it to everyone I know. And I found this one to be a better read than "Sarah."
Rating:
Summary: Haunting, Disturbing, and Completely Extant
Review: I started just flipping through a few random pages, and realized this was a work much too important to not read from front to back. I ended up reading it twice in the first day I owned it, and was totally late for work the next day - it was worth it. This work will appeal heavily to those of us with battered pasts. I expect that the social worker set will also find this a "required" read. Shades of Nancy Boutilier, Baudelaire, Plath, and Ginsburg all rolled into one terrifying ride. This book is brutally open: not for the easily offended, violence-queasy, or closed minded.
Rating: 
Summary: should have been a novel...
Review: i was leveled by this book. i am glad that i read it and am sure that i will heretofore exercise sublime discretion in recommending this to anyone. it is definitely not for all tastes but the "also bought" list here on amazon ought to give you a good idea of who has been reading this book and what to expect if you have read any of the other recommended authors' works.
to inject a bit of personal perspective, the closest author whose work LeRoy's comes close to is Dennis Cooper. there have been some comparisons to Genet but i don't think they're as accurate at the comparisons to Cooper. that said, i still think that LeRoy's work is extraordinary in spite of his age (which i have no biases whatsoever about) and am amazed both by his talents as a writer and his courage as a person.
a bit about the book: the stories are certainly worth the attention, acclaim, criticism, and controversy that have courted it. the title story is a graphic yet poetic account of one of several sexual escapades that plague the life of the book's central character, jeremy. while it may be off-putting subject matter it is nevertheless rendered in such lucid prose as to be mistaken at first for an autobiographical account (there is certainly enough evidence to support this hypothesis). and this tone carries throughout the stories and are all told from the perspective of a young boy in limbo between childhood and adolescence. in the end he has become a sexually stifled and repressed anti-hero. and perhaps it is the concept of the anti-hero that the author is trying to illuminate with these stories as all the characters are tragic yet beautiful in the eyes of the narrator, teetering on the brink of doom yet as alive as anyone else. the environment of the central character is populated by a turnstile of grotesque characters, a sea of lost souls whose tide seems to have receded from even the fringes of common society where they are sequestered in a harrowing squalor that is our "hero's" environment. painful at times but using such simple and plain language as to be mistaken for a jaded sensibility it is nevertheless a defining work of art and a noble achievement.
i dropped a star from my review because, as my review title indicates, this definitely would have been a great(er) work had it been a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Very disturbing....
Review: I've read all the other reviews and after hearing about the book else where, I decided that I should probably check it out. It's not like anything I've read before. I like his style of writing and to know that he himself is my age makes it all more exciting and interesting. There were times while I was reading that I almost lost focus but as soon as I was it picked right back up, and had me cringing. I personally liked it a lot and would recommend it to those fueling for a story that goes past the edges. Not for the light hearted.
Rating:
Summary: The Wait is Over!!!
Review: In my very positive review of J.T. LeRoy's first book, "Sarah", I said, "he would have to go a long way to top this debut novel when he writes his next book." Well, J.T. you've certainly came through with another gripping, heart-wrenching masterpiece. If these 10 autobiographical stories don't get to you, and make you want to help every abused child you can, than you have no heart or feeling. All of these loosely connected stories tell of such horrible abuse he suffered while growing up, it's just too hard to imagine his pain. It's really hard to get through this book, but you just can't stop reading it because you get this helpless feeling inside knowing that no child should ever have to suffer like he did.
The book is so beautifully written, it's hard to believe J.T. has only been writing for such a short time. It's very mature, lyrical writing for a writer so young. This story is like a bad nightmare you can't wake up from, it's that shocking. All of the sexual abuse, torment, suffering, and cruelty from his mother should have never happened. This is a book you'll never forget! One good thing that came out of all of this, we now have one of the most promising new writers to look forward to in the future. Don't miss this one!
Rating:
Summary: Notable Footprints, but where do they lead?
Review: JT LeRoy is a phenomenon, a writer who began putting words to paper at the impressionable age of sixteen and immediately shook the literary world with his raw style bathed in an understated honesty and vulnerability. The impression left by this work and the prior novel SARAH was that a powerful new voice in literature had arrived, a novice compared to Jean Genet, Andre Gide, Hubert Selby, Jr. to name only a few. Certainly LeRoy's style is indelibly his own and is shocking and powerful, but whether it is durable is a question that has yet to be answered.
Reading THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS becomes an obsession - is all of this possible, this endless degradation of a young child, born to a 14-year-old Sarah, daughter of wretched bible pounding brutal parents, who has no home except for shanties and truck cabs and foster homes and other dumps in which he is forced to endure physical abuse, drugs, rape, and cross-dressing to appease his mother's ever-changing tally of male lovers? Is this diary of the underbelly of society sustainable?
Whether it is media manipulation or some degree of distortion of the truth makes little difference in deciding whether these stories are autobiographical. LeRoy is clearly a fine writer able to make even the most appalling incidents of child abuse credible. Just when the reader begins to suffer form overkill of dastardly deeds, LeRoy digresses into some flights of poetic imagery that show this is not sensationalism per se. He knows how to write, how to peel open dark arenas feared by many other writers, and at the same time maintain compassion for his narrator Jeremiah and even provide some insights into the boorishly mad behavior of his Sarah and her many boyfriends, and even his grandparents. No pulp fiction this: this is narrative writing of high impact.
Though this book is apparently 'stories', it reads like a novel, save for the finesse of the material that would join these stories with a thread that pulls us into the next story without merely the seductive suction of the subject matter. JT LeRoy's latest book is an art book HAROLD'S WAY that is in many ways a continuation of 'Jeremiah's' life, but at a later age. Those of us who watch for new voices will await a full novel from JT LeRoy to see if there is more to this apparent talent than these early "All parade and no Circus" books. I think there is. Grady Harp, January 2005
Rating:
Summary: An emotional landslide
Review: Labels are often times erroneous or downright misleading. What JT LeRoy has brilliantly fashioned here is a horror story. No, not a horror story like those produced by Stephen King or Clive Barker, this is a horror story in that the subject matter is absolutely horrific. This is a savage and sobering series of interrelated stories dealing with the life long abuse suffered by a little boy named Jeremiah. Torture, pure and unadulterated. Mental, physical and sexual abuse are presented in a prose style which claims your attention like a brick through the front window. This is a shocking book on a variety of levels, the least of which is the subject matter. What is most shocking is the surety with which Mr. LeRoy writes. One would think that this material would almost assuredly repell its reader. However, the opposite is true. These stories grab on like a pit bull. Once you start, you simply must finish. That these pieces lack subtlety is only fitting. We aren't meant to be coddled or reassured by a Hollywood ending. I put the book down feeling drained and helpless. These are real horror stories. People actually live like this, treat one another like this, and the rest of the world looks away. Don't look away from this punishing, absorbing and challenging new book from one of the most exciting new writers of contemporary fiction.
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