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The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

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The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

By: J T LeRoy
Narrated by: Laura Albert, Shirley Manson, Joshua Caleb Johnson, SOKO, Michael Imperioli, Winsome Brown, Pamela Sneed, Robin Weigert, Lawrence Rothman, Jeff Feuerzeig, Kerris Dorsey, Julie Mintz, Paul Mendez, Donovan Leitch, Full Cast
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About this listen

The classic JT LeRoy story collection is now available in audio for the first time ever, featuring 11 previously uncollected stories, including one never before published, and an all-star line-up of 21 narrators.

“Beautifully structured and written.” (Hubert Selby, Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn)

This book of interconnected stories depicts the chaotic life of a young boy on the run with his teenage mother. When Sarah reclaims Jeremiah from his foster parents, he finds himself catapulted into her world of motels and truck stops, exposed to the abusive, exploitative men she encounters. As he learns to survive in this harrowing environment, Jeremiah also learns to love his mother, even as she descends into drug-fueled madness. Told in spare, lyrical prose, rich with imagination and dark humor, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things transforms the savagery of Jeremiah’s world into an indelible experience of compassion.

Foreword written and read by Jeff Feuerzeig

Narrators include: Laura Albert, Shirley Manson, Joshua Caleb Johnson, SOKO, Michael Imperioli, Winsome Brown, Pamela Sneed, Robin Weigert, Lawrence Rothman, Kerris Dorsey, Julie Mintz, Paul Mendez, Donovan Leitch, Daniel Newman, Darnell Martin, Alissa Bennett, Libby Mintz, Laura Desiree, Christelle de Castro, and Laila Hayani.

©2001 J T LeRoy. Previously unpublished stories © 2016 by Dove’s Diner, Inc. Foreword © 2016 by Jeff Feuerzeig (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing
Coming of Age Short Stories Witty
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What listeners say about The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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mindblowing

I found the changes in narrator interesting as it gives the impression of how Jeremiah's life did change and how he adapted to survive his surroundings. I needed to recap in places to grasp the changes, but overall, the depiction of the boys' life in the story is heartbreaking and mind-blowing that this could happen!!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Disturbing, but powerfully engaging.

This is a remarkable and difficult set of interlinked parts of the fictional early life story of J T LeRoy. For all the shock and controversies surrounding how the real J T LeRoy was uncovered to be a fiction in himself, it does not take away from the fact that this is a very powerful set of stories, that envelopes a whole set of issues that we try to ignore, pass by and pretend are not part of our society. As a result, you feel engaged, connected and at times responsible for the part we all play in ignoring the plight of people whose real lives are close to what J T had experienced. As a story, or a collection of stories, this book is excellent, though a very tough thing to read. As an audiobook however, it needed just one voice. The fact that each story was read by a range of voice actors, to me left it disjointed and at times harder to follow. However, as a project, overall this was a success. Laura Albert is undoubtedly a writing talent that will go down in literary history for managing to generate powerful fiction, both in the telling of a story and the theatre of what we want to see as truth and that of make believe.

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A jumbled, harrowing mess

Hard to know where to start. If this story was genuinely autobiographical or even semi autobiographical it would be hard to stomach, painfully sad but knowing it may have helped the author get the words out into the story would make it purposeful. This is nothing more than a peadophile’s wet dream, graphic detail of child sexual abuse which I just don’t know why any author would want to masquerade as the person that went through but didn’t. It’s very strange, disturbing and leaves a very bad taste in the mouth. Onto the production which is a jumbled mess of multiple narrators playing the same part so chapter by chapter the story jumps to a different time and place but you have no idea what’s going on because some else is narrating a part that was played by someone else only moments ago. Don’t waste your credit or your money!

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4 people found this helpful