Tra Virgolette

The heart is deceitful above all things

16 Dicembre, 2005

I am reading the J.T. Leroy book and I am shocked. Even though sometimes I feel sick for what I read, I can’t stop myself to go on.

It describes the wretched and tragic childhood of the author in a straight and harsh language. Jeremiah is four years old when the social workers take him off his foster family and leave him to his own mother, eighteen years old Sarah. The young woman is a desperate tossic who prostitutes herself for a living and changes boyfriends as frequently as her clothes.
Jeremiah is forced to live like an animal the most of the time, without being fed or looked after. His mother and her boyfriend whip him with belts, swear at him, keep saying to him that he has a devil inside.
Worst of all Sarah enjoys to dress him like a girl and allows her boyfriends and clients to abuse of him.
Jeremiah doesn’t understand what is the good way to follow, what is bad or not, he only aims for his mother ’s love.
The book can be tough and cruel now and then. Jeremiah describes all in details and you can’t believe that things like that actually happen. You suffer whit him, pray for him, hope that he will find a safe way out. You hate Sarah and her father (a preacher who forces his children to scrub their skin with scalding hot water and bleach and vigorously clean their genitals with a wire brush), you wish their miserable behaviours won’t ruin the life of Jeremiah for ever. You hatred the sordid and beat up Datsun where they live.

You are sad and touched when you go through the lines, but you are so involved that you can’t take the book apart. I haven’t finished it yet, i don’t know if there will be the light at the end of the tunnel for Jeremiah.
I don’t even know if I would recommend someone to read this book. But I know for sure that I won’t forget it for a long, long time.

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