THE MEMOIRS OF A BEAUTIFUL BOY

The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy, by Robert Leleux, tells the story of what happens to Leleux and his larger-than-life, overbearing mother after his father walks out on them, leaving them in Petunia, Texas with a lot less money than they're accustomed to.

The warm, hilarious story of the author's outrageously "different" childhood and intense relationship with his colorful, hopelessly narcissistic mother, who realizes he is gay even before he does, in a small town in East Texas. With honesty and humor, Robert Leleux captures the uniqueness of his childhood growing up gay in a small, rural Texas town with a colorful and vivacious mother. His growing self awareness that he was different from his Texan peers helped him develop the "ultimate frame of reference through which to view the rest of my life--providing useful insights, for instance, into why I found myself the only young man from Trinity Lutheran High School spending his evenings in West Side Story, as well as into the particular relationship I shared with my mother." Left nearly penniless when his rich father runs off with his pregnant girlfriend in the summer of 1996, Robert and his mother move into a rundown trailer house, and he watches as his mother copes with plastic surgeries and beauty makeovers in an attempt to secure a new, wealthy husband. Her desperate search is filled with plenty of missteps but ultimately succeeds. A teenage Robert struggles to reconcile his identity in light of his new circumstances, which lead him into his first relationship with his theater choreographer, Michael, whose name he ultimately adopts, and through him, a second family. Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy chronicles Robert's evolution through his often painful but hilarious experiences. Robert Leleux is a young poet/novelist who has published numerous magazine pieces and teaches creative writing in New York City Schools. This is his first book.