Sarah (novel)

Sarah
Author(s)	JT LeRoy
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Bloomsbury
Publication date	2001
Media type	Paperback
Pages	166 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-7475-4928-1 (paperback edition)
OCLC Number	44059140

Sarah is a novel by Laura Albert using the fictional teenage persona of JT LeRoy, a long-running literary hoax.

Plot introduction

Sarah is a story told by a 12-year-old boy called Cherry Vanilla, whose real name is Jeremiah. He lives with his mother Sarah, a prostitute at a truck stop, in a motel room rented by one of her clients, and their relationship is always strained, though he still loves her. He has been made to dress up as a girl for several years, to help his mother shoplift.

Plot summary

Cherry Vanilla passes himself off as a virginal girl and enters the service of Glad, a pimp who runs a truck stop brothel in West Virginia with a number of young boys dressed as women, though he is the youngest. He calls himself Sarah and learns how to turn tricks with the truckers.

Twelve-year-old 'Sarah' aspires to be the most famous lot lizard (prostitute) and runs away to work for a rival pimp, a cruel and murderous man called Le Loup. Cherry Vanilla passes himself off as a girl called Sarah and makes friends with a prostitute there called Pooh. He doesn't tell anyone he's a boy. Le Loup becomes entranced by Sarah's beauty and sets 'her' up as Saint Sarah and charges the truckers to visit with her, though no one can touch her. Eventually Sarah is found out, Le Loup viciously cuts her hair off, scarring her scalp, and Sarah – now 'Sam' – is forced to be a male child prostitute for more than a year, being continually abused. Sarah finally escapes and returns to the relative safety of Glad's operation only to find that his mother has left.

The story itself has many of the elements of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, but has a lighter, more humorous feel in its account of Cherry's quest (such as renaming himself Sarah after his mother) to become the greatest lot lizard in the brothel. Much as in LeRoy's earlier writing, the protagonist falls upon bad times and faces exploitation and abuse at the hands of a pimp. Less dark than the short story collection, the novel has a distinct mythical, Dickensian feel and relates the story of a child's love for his mother as expressed through his imitation of her.

Reference to the novel in popular culture

The song "Cherry Lips" by Garbage refers to Cherry, the protagonist of this novel.

The song "Sarah" by Bat for Lashes was inspired by the novel.

Novels portal

External links

• New York Times review