Sarah was published in 2000, a brave move by the publishers. In today's hysterical climate I doubt it would see print.

The novel is a first person account of the experiences of "Sarah", a young male prostitute in West Virginia. This is the world of diners, truckers and tricks. The leader of the community - the pimp - is a man named Glad. He looks after his boys and girls and they respect him. Glad "aspires to be a world-class pimp and to make the trucker's handbooks, but also wants to be Santa Claus too." Keep the customers happy and it's a good life as one of Glad's lizards.

"Sarah" - we never find out his real name - has curly golden hair. Glad puts him in a leather mini-skirt and has him servicing the truckers as a she-male. He's good at the job and enjoys it.

Sarah wants nothing more than to be the best lizard ever. When things seem to be moving slowly he leaves Glad and moves to another neighbourhood and another pimp.

Big mistake. Sarah is first taken to be some kind of saint but then things go badly wrong. Sarah learns the reality of being a kept lizard forced to work for an unpleasant pimp.

OK, not very salubrious, but hardly dangerous. Yes, but...

Sarah is twelve.

The potential backlash is obvious, perhaps that's why the publishers devote two pages to quotes from literary figures stating what a fine book this is.

And it is. Leroy avoids the temptation of descending into the salacious. If you're looking for pornography then look somewhere else. There's no explicit sex in here.

Sarah is an excellent character study that also depicts two very different close-knit, thriving communities. We might not like those communities, but in their own terms they work. Leroy doesn't try to justify child prostitution but nor does he morally judge those children caught up in its web. He shows us this seedy, repulsive world through the eyes of a young child who has been brought up to know nothing else.

There's also a refreshing honesty about the realities of prostitution. It isn't always about sex. As Glad tells Sarah early on: "You have to learn to read a man and know when he's just looking for fun and when what he really needs is for you to hold him so he can cry his eyes out like a babe".

There's also the occasional humorous scene, though I can't agree with the description of the book as "wildly comic". The odd laugh is simply counterpoint to the overall tragedy.

I've no idea how accurate this book is, it's certainly believable. It should be - "Sarah" is apparently semi-autobiographical.

Leroy conjures up a powerful sense of place and character. As a Brit I found some of the language and references hard going, but if anything that simply added to the spell. Sarah is darkly horrible and also mesmerising. I read it in one sitting.

Sarah grows up a lot during the story. Then again, he never had a childhood. That's the real sorrow in this book.