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by Robert Leleux
In the Dear John letter Daddy left for Mother and me, on a Saturday afternoon in early June 1996, on the inlaid Florentine table in the front entry of our house, which we found that night upon returning from a day spent in the crème-colored light of Neiman’s, Daddy wrote that he was leaving us because Mother was crazy, and because she’d driven me crazy in a way that perfectly suited her own insanity.
In a memoir studded with delicious lines and unforgettable set pieces, Robert Leleux describes his East Texas boyhood and coming of age under the tutelage of his eccentric, bewigged, flamboyant, and knowing mother.
Left high and dry by Daddy and living on their in-laws’ horse ranch in a white-pillared house they can’t afford, Robert and Mother find themselves chronically low on cash. Soon they are forced into more modest quarters, and as a teenaged Robert watches with hilarity and horror, Mother begins a desperate regimen of makeovers, extreme plastic surgeries, and finally hairpiece epoxies---all calculated to secure a new, wealthy husband.
Mother’s strategy takes her, with Robert in tow, from the glamorous environs of the Neiman Marcus beauty salon to questionable surgery offices and finally to a storefront clinic on the wrong side of Houston. Meanwhile, Robert begins his own journey away from Mother and through the local theater’s world of miscast hopefuls and thwarted ambitions---and into a romance that surprises absolutely no one but himself.
"If a 16-year-old boy sharing hair and nail appointments with his mother at Neiman Marcus every Saturday seems an entertaining way to begin a colorful tale, then the remaining adventures in this smart and funny coming-of-age tale will be a hoot for you, as well. Fans of TV's "Ugly Betty" will find it easy to imagine the star of this memoir: just picture a brilliant, expressive young man who is half Marc (Wilhelmina's outrageous secretary) and half Jason (Betty's teenage nephew). Leleux's perceptive observations and exuberant sparks fly quickly off these pages, as he spins recollections about growing up gay in remote East Texas. This amusing autobiographical debut will remind readers of a youthful, witty David Sedaris."
- BookBrowse.com - Kathy Pierson.
"Though the author calls it a memoir, it reads more like a comic novel with considerable theatrical panache. Addressing his readers as "mes petites," the beautiful boy frequently seems to speak to a special audience. Extravagantly solipsistic." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Reader, stand back! Here's Robert Leleux, the funniest young writer to appear in who knows when, with a maelstrom of a mother straight out of hell and Neiman Marcus, talking his way into the affections of readers everywhere with a wicked tongue tempered -- barely -- by a big generous heart."- Mark Doty, author of Dog Years, Firebird, and Heaven's Coast.
"The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy is, in a word, just that: beautiful. It is also hilarious and heartwarming. Robert Leleux, whose talent is as big as his home state of Texas, is more than a survivor. He is, with this glory of a book, triumphant." - Kevin Sessums, author of Mississippi Sissy.
This information about The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
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