What do you think of Larry LaSalle, and the way he is presented in the novel?

Larry LaSalle is a fake.

When he first appears he is described in Hollywood glamour terms: Movie-star teeth,
having a touch of Fred Astaire, and is a natural athlete and baseball player in a town obsessed
with that sport. He dazzles the blue-collar community of Frenchtown, especially its teenagers, out
of whom he draws their hidden talents. Even his name causes them to spontaneously applaud.
But right from the start there are dark hints about his past, which the youthful Wreck Centre
children naively interpret as glamorous mystery.
During his time at the Wreck Centre Lasalle uses his charm and slick appeal to manipulate the
children. Although their aptitude for various activities surprises everyone for example a school
bully becomes an accomplished singer none of the children seem to choose their own activities.
LaSalle chooses for them and they adore him in return. Although Francis, normally shy, gains
confidence from playing table tennis this is contrasted with the sexualised way in which LaSalle
dances with Nicole. She instantly caught the attention of Larry LaSalle and he flatters her by
making her the star of a stage show an ominous foreshadowing of LaSalle's ultimate goal for her.
When Francis faces LaSalle over the table tennis table he realises that LaSalle is carefully
throwing the match in Francis' favour. But when the final point of the match comes Francis looks
into LaSalle's eyes and describes them as inscrutable, mysterious and Francis realises how easily
LaSalle could crush him. LaSalle lets Francis win for which mercy Francis thanks him. But it was
important to LaSalle that Francis knew this, that Francis acknowledge his dependence on LaSalle
with that thanks.
After the attack on Pearl Harbour LaSalle joins up immediately. His movie-star smile is
replaced with grim-faced determination, he gives a patriotic speech and rejects the children's
cheers claiming he's doing no less than millions of others. LaSalle is merely playing a role for an
audience, casting himself as an ideal according to circumstance. The slick showbiz entertainer
swiftly replaced with square-jawed American defiance when that is what will make him look good
to other people and fulfil their expectation of what a hero is.
When LaSalle wins a medal, and characteristically is filmed in action for a newsreel so that
everyone can see what a hero he is, he returns to Frenchtown even more of a celebrity. Francis
idealises LaSalle's war record in corny, Hollywood terms grenades dangling from his belt,
pumping bullets into the enemy. But his movie-star gait is different: lethal and knife-like. He
gives a speech full of the empty rhetoric expected of a war hero and is adored because he is
fulfilling his audience's expectations.
LaSalle, like the pied piper to which he has been compared, leads the children away from the

safety of the town's adults back to the Wreck Centre. There he uses his hold on Francis to make him
leave Nicole alone with him, and LaSalle rapes her. He leaves town suddenly, Francis knows
because he's just committed a terrible crime, but the townsfolk, bamboozled by LaSalle's careful
manipulation of their opinion of him, decide he must have been summoned to perform some special
war duty.
To the people of the town LaSalle's has secured his reputation so strongly it cannot be
tarnished or gainsaid. Nicole knows any attempt to report the rape would be scoffed at. To the
veterans of the St Jude Club he's the best of the best. His true character is only revealed to Francis
when he visits LaSalle in order to murder him in vengeance for Nicole's rape.
LaSalle is no longer the glamorous figure he was, his apartment is identical to Francis' poor
lodgings. Ignorant of Francis' intentions LaSalle attempts to flatter him and boost his ego referring
to their table tennis match. But when LaSalle says to Francis you deserved to win because he
played like a champion LaSalle is revealing that to him it is the appearance of being a champion,
a hero, rather than the reality that's important. He reveals to Francis that Nicole is not the only
young girl he has violated and says that they are justified by his view that There's all kinds of
love. He is showing that he does not choose to differentiate between right and wrong. He shows no
remorse for his actions only wishing again for the past adulation of others when I was the big hero
you say I was. LaSalle offers to commit suicide, flattering Francis that he is too moral to commit
murder. But facing imminent death LaSalle begs in a voice like the small cry of a child. It's the
only honest thing he's ever said. The good opinion of others, even his murderer, is all LaSalle has
ever had in his life and he cannot face losing it.
LaSalle does kill himself. But there is no victory in it for him. Francis had also considered
suicide but rejected it as cowardice. In his death Larry LaSalle reveals his true character is
emphatically not heroic because he would not face the consequences of his own actions.