Selling My Books on the Streets of Brooklyn 9/10

I just finished JT LeRoy's short story collection The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2001). The back cover says his first book, Sarah, a novel whose central figure is the secondary one in The Heart..., was published when he was 16. I went to Wikipeida to research him and found a story that is a novel itself. LeRoy is the pseudonym of Laura Albert, who was impersonated in public by Savannah Knoop, half sister of her lover. I won't go into further details, as the story is complicated. It was even used as the basis of an episode of Law and Order. I did not feel deceived when I discovered this. Since the work is presented as fiction, the only thing that matters is whether it is good, unlike James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, which was presented as truth. I have a tough time with anything about cruelty to children, and that is what this story collection is all about. All the stories involve the same adolescent and his nightmare existence, depicted in a style that falls a little short of graphic, although the blanks are easily imagined. It reads like a novel. The prose is clear and concise, but I was frequently confused as to which character was speaking. The author begins sentences with dialogue, then continues in the same paragraph with another speaker's thoughts or words. The strength of the book is its use of metaphors. I often avoid them in my own work, feeling they've all been used up by now. I can cite only one of mine I think is first rate and hasn't been used by anyone else, from Triple Witching Hour, a short story in A Hitch in Twilight: "...screaming like the walls of a vagina of a victim of rape." LeRoy's seem fresh and original, indicating wonderful talent. Of course, the reader will wonder whether the author experienced the horror portrayed. According to the Wiki profile, no one knows for sure. Again, since it is fiction, it doesn't matter. On a scale of five, I rate The Heart Is Deceitful above All Things three stars.
Thanks to the kind ladies on Bay Parkway today, who purchased a book on baking, and the late, beloved  Erma Bombeck's Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession. Her witty syndicated column was a guilty pleasure of mine.
Read Vic's stories, free:
http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/