TIL that you can have a full-path soname in a dynamic library, so that binaries linked to it can find it even if it's in a non-standard place:

gcc -shared -o libcrazy.so -Wl,-soname,/an/esoteric/place/to/store/libcrazy.so crazy.c
gcc -o main -L. -lcrazy main.c

This way, you don't need kludges regarding the use of LD_LIBRARY_PATH nor anything else.