Don't Leer

James Leer is a character.

No, literally, he’s a character. He has recreated himself in college. All of the other students and Grady think James is a poor, depressed kid whose mother died and whose father has cancer. He tells Hannah that he lives with his aunt in Mt.Lebanon. He writes these really disturbing stories that seem to be inspired by his own life, but I guess that’s just what he wants people to think.

He seems to be trying to turn himself into this tragic character—Grady catches him pondering killing himself.

He talks about this life, a life he says is his, and a life he wrote an autobiographical novel about.

But later we find out that James is a rich kid with country club parents who drive a Mercedes. Everything he told Grady and everybody else was fabricated.

I guess my question is why? Why did he want people to believe he lived in a dilapidated shack with a father dying from cancer? When most people fabricate a story about their lives they make their made up life better than their real one. But James took himself from the country club to the slums. Why?

I know he’s a writer, but I feel like his pathological lying has a deeper meaning than he just likes to make up stories. And he is a pathological liar. The part when he is lying to Grady about his parents after they come to get him is just pathetic. He lies about the gun being a fake, and he also lies about knowing how to roll a reefer. But these lies make no sense—what’s his motivation? Maybe he was truly unhappy in his actual life. Maybe he felt oppressed and unable to express himself.

I mean, apparently he’s an eccentric kid. He was able to give a list of actors who had killed themselves and their method of choice. He has a weird obsession with Hollywood. He stole a Marilyn Monroe jacket from the house of the chancellor of his college. He shot the chancellor’s dog with the gun he said was a fake. He wears a long stained trench coat that smells bad every day, and he carries his cloth knapsack with him everywhere.

Maybe he’s the classic case of the lost soul. He entered college and he’s just trying to find himself, but he’s confused and doesn’t know how to deal with the confusion. He seems to be really troubled, and he seems to be confused about his sexual orientation, which is made apparent by the things that go on between him and Crabtree. He also seems to be truly upset by the discouraging comments of his classmates about his stories. Plus there’s the whole he tried to kill himself thing (or at least thought about killing himself).

James Leer is a character all right; he’s the character in a book he wrote about the life he has been claiming as his own.

Who is James Leer?