Harold's End
Originally published in McSweeney’s in 2002, Leroy’s beautifully written and heartbreaking story of Oliver, a heroin-addicted street kid, and Harold, his pet snail, gets repackaged in a small and gorgeous edition illustrated by Australian artist Wood. Wood’s watercolor portraits of Oliver’s fellow teenage hustlers (Serenity, Gotti, Crayon) and their pets (a snake, a dog, a rat) reveal their toughness and frailty; the paint, lightly, caressingly applied, drips down the page in delicate streaks. "In the eyes of her subjects," Leroy writes in his acknowledgements, "she mines the unspoken, unguarded moments, what lays sic beyond their layers of fortification." Dave Eggers contributes an admiring foreword, and editor Michael Ray delivers an ecstatic afterword. For Leroy fans—and there are many—this is an essential volume.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.