Note: If you wish to cover the release of Harold’s End for a publication, please write to harolds_end AT hotmail.com
Last Gasp Publishes:
CULT AUTHOR SOLIDIFIES LITERARY REPUTATION WITH SEARING NOVELLA OF EXQUISITE HOPE AMID SQUALOR
It is stunning… damned perfect book.
—Dave Eggers
With my hand on my heart, the best I've read.....JT LeRoy writes straight from the hip, and the heart and the brain.
—Zadie Smith
I was gripped by every page. I loved it! JT LeRoy is an original. What I love about JT is the truth--the truth is always new, the truth as one knows it. It shines from his pages.
—Paula Fox
Good Lord, what a book! JT LeRoy’s writing is savagely authentic and appallingly beautiful. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.
—John Waters
JT’s stories are like stitches, like exit wounds, dispatches, depositions. He is the brilliant, gifted and profound fly on the wall. You’ll need handkerchiefs and Novocain to get through this.
—Tom Waits
A San Francisco street kid hustling to feed his heroin habit. A middle-aged rich guy with an uncommon turn-on. Oh yeah, and a snail.
Not a threesome you'd normally expect to connect, let alone form delicate, shimmering bonds that illuminate their grim existence like phosphorescence on a cave wall. But Harold's End is the work of JT LeRoy, an astonishingly trenchant author who has achieved acclaim with the best-selling books Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things.
This stunning novella's well-honed craft remains true to the wild, resonant originality that has drawn LeRoy a passionate following. Illustrated with watercolors by Cherry Hood, an Australian artist known for her probing realism, Harold's End speaks to us of the universality of loss and the desire for trust and love.
Unlike his crew of elusively gendered hustler-junkies and their pets, the narrator of Harold's End is nameless, a boy vigilantly protective of his emotions. When Larry, a self-described "homme d'affaires," shows up on the block and ingratiates himself with its mistrustful inhabitants ("We scan him for signs-outreach or vice.") by handing out clean needles and treats for the animals, LeRoy's narrator feigns indifference; but when Larry announces there's something for him, too, he can't resist. "Maybe it's something I want or something I can sell," he tells himself.
That something is a snail. Not just any snail, mind you, but "a descendant of the first snails brought to the Bay Area by the French in the 19th century." Christened Harold, the snail happily munches on Larry's organic mesclun as the trio's relationships unfold through LeRoy's rich language until a final sad mishap in a residential hotel dumpster provokes the defiant climax to Harold's End.
Such is the author's talent in composing sweet melodies of wildly discordant tones that he can pull off passages like this: "Before bed I climb into the pajamas he got me, even though they're covered in dancing penguins, and I let him watch me do my balloon. And then I talk. I tell him what I tell no one until I fall asleep against him."
LeRoy presents his powerless, deadpan narrator and deftly cracks his shell, finally exposing the fierce emotion at his core. Artfully belying our expectations, he has his characters carom from unexpected situations to exquisite delicacy even hilarity ("That don't look like no mescaline to me," the narrator exclaims at first sight of Harold amidst the salad greens, "but I never had the organic kind").
And therein lies the savage power of LeRoy's writing: his ability to pluck diamonds from the ashes of reality. Harold's End marks another triumph of this blindingly talented author, a tale that sings with a sweet hope that only partially soothes its ferocious sting.
About the Author
JT LeRoy is the author of the International Best Sellers, Sarah & The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. His work appears in many short story anthologies, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, edited by Dave Eggers; MTV’s Lit Riffs; XXX edited by Timothy Greenfield-Saunders; Nadav Kander’s Beauty’s Nothing; and The Fourth Sex, Adolescent Extremes by Francesco Bonami & Raf Simon.
His stories have been published by the literary journals Zoetrope, McSweeney’s and Memorious. A contributing editor to Black Book, I-D, Butter and iii magazines, JT has also written reviews, articles and interviews for The New York Times, The London Times, Spin, Film Comment, Filmmaker, Interview, 7x7 and Vogue, among others. He is syndicated world wide. He has also written the liner notes and bios for musicians Billy Corgan, Nancy Sinatra, Bryan Adams, Liz Phair and Courtney Love.
Harold’s End is the first of a series of novellas to be published by Last Gasp of San Francisco and illustrated by Cherry Hood. His next one, Labor, will be published in 2005.
About the Artist
Cherry Hood is a Sydney based visual artist who uses watercolor and pigment to make oversized figurative paintings. Her subject is usually the adolescent boy. Hood works from live models, and from her own obsessive photographs which focus on how the human body, especially the female body, is translated into an image and represented in popular culture. Hood's paintings for Harold’s End will be exhibited at the Deitch Gallery in New York City in November.
I am profoundly impressed by this amazing, absolutely brilliant writer, JT LeRoy. One of the most beautiful pieces of fiction I've seen years. You won't believe it until you've read it. It is crafted from careful, perfect language and buoyed up by a spirit so strong as to draw tears from my eyes.’
—Lewis Nordan
I'm reading JT LeRoy. He’s blowing my mind, just the directness of the prose.
—Bono of U2
One of the reasons this book is so powerful and effective is because it is beautifully structured and written. JT LeRoy should have a most remarkable future as a writer.
—Hubert Selby, Jr.
Fiction/ Novella
Last Gasp Publishers, San Francisco
December, 2004
$19.95
96 pages / 5 ¼ X 7 ¼
ISBN 0-86719-614-9
Last Gasp Publishes:
HAROLD’S END
A Novella
by JT LeRoy
CULT AUTHOR SOLIDIFIES LITERARY REPUTATION WITH SEARING NOVELLA OF EXQUISITE HOPE AMID SQUALOR
It is stunning… damned perfect book.
—Dave Eggers
With my hand on my heart, the best I've read.....JT LeRoy writes straight from the hip, and the heart and the brain.
—Zadie Smith
I was gripped by every page. I loved it! JT LeRoy is an original. What I love about JT is the truth--the truth is always new, the truth as one knows it. It shines from his pages.
—Paula Fox
Good Lord, what a book! JT LeRoy’s writing is savagely authentic and appallingly beautiful. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.
—John Waters
JT’s stories are like stitches, like exit wounds, dispatches, depositions. He is the brilliant, gifted and profound fly on the wall. You’ll need handkerchiefs and Novocain to get through this.
—Tom Waits
A San Francisco street kid hustling to feed his heroin habit. A middle-aged rich guy with an uncommon turn-on. Oh yeah, and a snail.
Not a threesome you'd normally expect to connect, let alone form delicate, shimmering bonds that illuminate their grim existence like phosphorescence on a cave wall. But Harold's End is the work of JT LeRoy, an astonishingly trenchant author who has achieved acclaim with the best-selling books Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things.
This stunning novella's well-honed craft remains true to the wild, resonant originality that has drawn LeRoy a passionate following. Illustrated with watercolors by Cherry Hood, an Australian artist known for her probing realism, Harold's End speaks to us of the universality of loss and the desire for trust and love.
Unlike his crew of elusively gendered hustler-junkies and their pets, the narrator of Harold's End is nameless, a boy vigilantly protective of his emotions. When Larry, a self-described "homme d'affaires," shows up on the block and ingratiates himself with its mistrustful inhabitants ("We scan him for signs-outreach or vice.") by handing out clean needles and treats for the animals, LeRoy's narrator feigns indifference; but when Larry announces there's something for him, too, he can't resist. "Maybe it's something I want or something I can sell," he tells himself.
That something is a snail. Not just any snail, mind you, but "a descendant of the first snails brought to the Bay Area by the French in the 19th century." Christened Harold, the snail happily munches on Larry's organic mesclun as the trio's relationships unfold through LeRoy's rich language until a final sad mishap in a residential hotel dumpster provokes the defiant climax to Harold's End.
Such is the author's talent in composing sweet melodies of wildly discordant tones that he can pull off passages like this: "Before bed I climb into the pajamas he got me, even though they're covered in dancing penguins, and I let him watch me do my balloon. And then I talk. I tell him what I tell no one until I fall asleep against him."
LeRoy presents his powerless, deadpan narrator and deftly cracks his shell, finally exposing the fierce emotion at his core. Artfully belying our expectations, he has his characters carom from unexpected situations to exquisite delicacy even hilarity ("That don't look like no mescaline to me," the narrator exclaims at first sight of Harold amidst the salad greens, "but I never had the organic kind").
And therein lies the savage power of LeRoy's writing: his ability to pluck diamonds from the ashes of reality. Harold's End marks another triumph of this blindingly talented author, a tale that sings with a sweet hope that only partially soothes its ferocious sting.
About the Author
JT LeRoy is the author of the International Best Sellers, Sarah & The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. His work appears in many short story anthologies, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, edited by Dave Eggers; MTV’s Lit Riffs; XXX edited by Timothy Greenfield-Saunders; Nadav Kander’s Beauty’s Nothing; and The Fourth Sex, Adolescent Extremes by Francesco Bonami & Raf Simon.
His stories have been published by the literary journals Zoetrope, McSweeney’s and Memorious. A contributing editor to Black Book, I-D, Butter and iii magazines, JT has also written reviews, articles and interviews for The New York Times, The London Times, Spin, Film Comment, Filmmaker, Interview, 7x7 and Vogue, among others. He is syndicated world wide. He has also written the liner notes and bios for musicians Billy Corgan, Nancy Sinatra, Bryan Adams, Liz Phair and Courtney Love.
Harold’s End is the first of a series of novellas to be published by Last Gasp of San Francisco and illustrated by Cherry Hood. His next one, Labor, will be published in 2005.
About the Artist
Cherry Hood is a Sydney based visual artist who uses watercolor and pigment to make oversized figurative paintings. Her subject is usually the adolescent boy. Hood works from live models, and from her own obsessive photographs which focus on how the human body, especially the female body, is translated into an image and represented in popular culture. Hood's paintings for Harold’s End will be exhibited at the Deitch Gallery in New York City in November.
I am profoundly impressed by this amazing, absolutely brilliant writer, JT LeRoy. One of the most beautiful pieces of fiction I've seen years. You won't believe it until you've read it. It is crafted from careful, perfect language and buoyed up by a spirit so strong as to draw tears from my eyes.’
—Lewis Nordan
I'm reading JT LeRoy. He’s blowing my mind, just the directness of the prose.
—Bono of U2
One of the reasons this book is so powerful and effective is because it is beautifully structured and written. JT LeRoy should have a most remarkable future as a writer.
—Hubert Selby, Jr.
Harold’s End
JT LeRoyFiction/ Novella
Last Gasp Publishers, San Francisco
December, 2004
$19.95
96 pages / 5 ¼ X 7 ¼
ISBN 0-86719-614-9