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Freak
Show by James St James
Book review written for Amazon
I can tell you categorically, and with no small degree of bitterness, that James St James makes me SICK. Sick because he is so wretchedly talented and his words just flow off the pages.
Yeah,
OK, so he's no Keats or Shakespeare or Orwell, but his colloquial language
and the sheer energy he injects into his prose makes it seem like an old
friend has come to visit and tell you an exciting story. It's like he's
so full of it that he can't get the words out fast enough and he keeps laughing
and forgetting stuff and "OHMYGOD, you just won't believe the next
bit". You simply can't WAIT to get to the next paragraph, but you have
to keep stopping cos you're laughing so much.
Freak Show is about a young boy who goes to school in the city where he is a cheerful and popular outsider. Then he gets sent to live with his father in Hicksville where he turns up at his new redneck school dressed as a pirate. The students are substantially unimpressed and a torrent of abuse rains down on him. The abuse continues so he ponders, well, what the hell ... I might as well go to school as a drag queen. Of course he gets the sh*t kicked out of him and, well, I don't want to spoilt the plot ... it's basically an outsider makes good story but with a not-too-schmaltzy ending. Not everything goes according to plan
I worry that the cultural references will limit the longevity of the story, like describing somebody's failure as, "(she) totally Britney'ed, y'all", but I marvel at his ability to engage the reader. I love the brilliance of telling us all to "WAIT! STOP! HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! Nobody read another page! You there! Hands off the book! Put your reading glasses on the ground where I can see them!" All this because he's told us a lie and his conscience won't let him continue. I could positively weep at the cleverness.
If you've loved Augusten Burroughs or David Sedaris, you should totally check out this slick b*stard. Then we can form a vigilante group, hunt him down and kill him.
