Another Leroy Piece
The gender-blurring wunderkind JT LeRoy’s new work of fiction, ”Harold’s End,” is billed as a novella but in fact barely weighs in as a short story. There may be almost 100 pages here, but they are small in size and somewhat airy. This book has been padded unabashedly: there’s an introduction by Dave Eggers, who first published an early version of the text in McSweeney’s; an afterword by Michael Ray, LeRoy’s editor; a dozen watercolors by the Australian artist Cherry Hood; and nearly four full pages of acknowledgments (Billy Corgan, Gus Van Sant, Tatum O’Neal, Lou Reed and sundry others are gushingly thanked). It’s no exaggeration to say it takes more time to read through the press packet than the actual story — a modest, sometimes affecting tale of a boy, his pet and scatological perversion.
LeRoy’s brief career has generated the kind of magazine-feature publicity usually reserved for movie stars.
Good thing the NY Times does its part.
