Reporting the missing teen is Helen, Leonard’s aunt and unofficial foster mother. And it is not all that long before the boy’s iconic fashion statement – a high-top sneaker perched atop a handcrafted platform of rainbow-hued flip-flops – washes up on shore and serves as a clear indication that Leonard has been murdered. It all begins when Detective Chuck DeSantis, a middle aged, salt-of-the-earth working-class guy, is confronted with a report that 14-year-old Leonard Pelkey has suddenly gone missing. Beyond all that, the play pays homage to how theater can serve as a refuge for beleaguered souls, and as an unexpected form of expression for others. (A gay university student who was tortured and killed in 1998.) But it comes with the irresistible structure of the classic detective story, the many comic delights of watching a skilled actor singlehandedly morph into a slew of characters who suggest the diverse characters of a working-class town on the Jersey shore. This young adult novel inspired the critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway show The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, and is now available in paperback for the first time.The storyline is something of a first cousin to Lecesne’s “Trevor,” the 1995 Academy Award-winning short film he also wrote, and is a more distant cousin of musicals such as “Hairspray” and “Kinky Boots.” On a darker note it also calls to mind the real-life tragedy of Matthew Shepard. Phoebe, her family, and her community fight to understand what happened, and to make sense of why someone might want to extinguish the beautiful absolute brightness that was Leonard Pelkey.įrom an Academy Award-winning writer, actor, and activist in the LGBTQ community, this is a groundbreaking story about love, prejudice, and the aftermath of a senseless murder.
He inspires the people around him-he sees people not as they are, but as they hope to be. When he comes to live with Phoebe’s family, he upsets the delicate balance of their lives.
Leonard is an orphan, a cousin who Phoebe never knew she had. But everything changes when Leonard arrives. She helps her mom out with her hair salon, she goes to school, and she envies her perfect older sister. Phoebe’s life in Neptune, New Jersey, is somewhat unremarkable. From Trevor Project founder and Academy Award-winner James Lecesne, this YA novel about a gay teen who is murdered inspired the hit Off-Broadway show The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey.
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