You're No J.T. Leroy— Thank God

My name is Susie Bright and I am not JT Leroy.

I am, however, part of the Leroy Dupe Club. Membership: Countless.

I must be one of the early members. I got the raccoon penis-bone in the mail years ago.  I wept over his work when I read his unpublished first stories. Now my face is another color.

For readers,  famous author JT Leroy’s hoax— that “he” is really a “she,” that a middle class 40-year-old woman has been impersonating the life of  a lumpen gutter whore child— must make for great reading. Memoir, shmemoir, right?

But if you’re an author, an editor, a publisher— or worse, a friend— to someone who bullshit you up one side and down the other, it’s not cute. It’s not irrelevant. It’s a cruel con, straight up, and the whole writers’ community suffered for it.

Welcome to the first meeting of JT Anonymous. I published JT. I  defended him in public, performed for him, responded to every editorial and hook-me-up request. I took Twilight Zone phone calls and tendered his frightening tantrums. 

I’m embarrassed to tell you all the nutty things I did. Every time he was mean, or screwed up, I always told myself to stay steady and kind. Why did I make the effort? I’m no saint. But from listening to him,  I believed the childhood he described surviving would have killed anyone else. The very least I could do was show compassion. I lived up to my promise, too — until a week before Stephen Beachy’s story came out saying that JT Leroy was a hoax.

What happened a week before the dime dropped? I guess you could say it was My Own Private Idaho— I mean, breaking point.

The day in October that I got my last “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” email from JT, I hadn’t heard from him in a long time. I knew why— I was no longer in a position to help him, professionally. His interest in me as a friend had evaporated as soon as he had new companions with diamonds on their fingers and bells on their toes. I was a blip.

JT had long ago risen above my rank in the publishing world. Despite his plaintive old cries of how much he loved me, and how important my work was to him— which overwhelmed me at the time— now, it was all Courtney This and Winona That. Gus Van Sant is calling. Carrie Fischer says dinner is ready.

One Hollywood friend of mine who he courted, told me he sent her expensive gifts of chocolates and lingerie. Wow. I wasn’t on that list.

People can be cruelly changed by sudden fortune. My dismissal from JT’s "special people club" had hurt. But it was so long ago. Two years past, I had sent him a copy of my new book, and asked if he would like to comment on it. I had never asked him for anything before, and like most writers, I dreaded asking my peers for compliments.

But such favors are something publishers beg authors to do... to ask your pals who have a buzz if they would say a kind word about your new project. It makes a significant difference in sales.  I’d done such recommendations for him, and dozens of others.

After I sent him my book, Mommy's Little Girl, with a note, he called me up, whacked, late at night.

“Oh my god, your book, it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever read in my life! Oh, Susie!” Then there was a lot of gasping and mewing, as if we were crowded into a Studio 54 toilet. Then the line went dead.

I snorted. I think my book is quite good, but it’s not the most incredible thing *I*’ve ever read in my life, and I’m sure it’s not Leroy’s eternal flame. My impression was that he hadn’t read it at all.

I emailed him in the morning to ask if he could write down a line, however modest, that I could send to my publisher.

I never heard from him, and I was too embarrassed to ask any further. I knew he didn’t need my help anymore to tell him his work was good, that his spelling was fixable, that I believed in him. At one time he seemed comforted to know that I had faith in him, that he could survive and flourish, despite HIV, his personal demons, his addictions. But he didn’t need anything from me anymore.

Then, that peculiar day in October, JT wrote and asked me to help fundraise for his son’s private French immersion school, Lycee Francaise La Perouse— the most prestigious and expensive secondary school in San Francisco.

THUD.

I had just come from a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser before I opened my mail. JT’s plea to support his dream of higher education seemed... just plain high.

In the years since I first knew him, JT had made film and book deals galore, with celebrities fawning at every gesture. Would he like to donate to my gas bill? It happens to be suffering more than Lycee Francaise’s current endowment fund.

But  I didn’t write back. I didn’t want to say I felt ignored and used, because I felt silly that I had ever thought our relationship was anything more than one-way.

JT never forced me to help him; I wanted to! He never took an interest in me, so why would I imagine he would change? It’s not unusual for kids with abandonment and  abuse backgrounds to be narcissistic. I blamed myself for being attracted to those qualities. He pushed my rescue buttons, which are large and soft. It was me who needed to change.

The week after this incident, which I told no one about, the hoax story came out in New York magazine.

I sat at my laptop reading it, with my mouth hanging open. It turns out JT is:  a woman near my age named Emily Albert.

Ms. Albert actually DOES know me from the past, because we worked together on an erotic spoken word album in the early 90s called Cyborgasm. The mind reels. No wonder s/he seemed so familiar with my work.

Emily Albert, not looking a thing like her protagonist, has all this time arranged for her blonde sister-in-law, Savannah Knoops, to “play” the role of JT in public. This explains why the "Physical Version of JT" always sounded like  an inarticulate boob in public, because it really isn’t Emily, who has a way with words.

All the money from JT’s work has gone to Emily’s family, a corporation in her mother’s name. Emily certainly does have a son in private school, which explains why "JT" acted more conventionally bourgeois and maternal about “his kid” than any teenage homeless runaway I ever met.

What a lovely little family. I have never been frauded by an author racket before, and I have to say, it feels like a punch in the stomach.

There are people out there who think that outrage like mine is overblown. Some have said this is simply a story about a talented author using a pseudonym which disguises their gender.

That’s horseshit. If Emily Albert had sent me those first short stories in her own name, I would have read them all the same. I publish authors all the time who have a very different life than their characters. My hat is off to them, they have my every respect. Their research and credibility are on the line, and they live up to it.

Emily didn’t have to con me to get me to pay attention to her writing. But by portraying herself as the Little Cripple Boy, who’d choke back the tears as he asked me for a match, she set up the dynamic that determined the rest of our relationship:

Don’t expect anything from JT— he’s too fragile. Don’t tell him to not be an asshole— he can barely get up in the morning. Never refuse a request, no matter how crazy— he’s never had anyone he could count on in his life.

Just to let you know how far gone I was, when I first read Beachy’s expose, my first thought was, “If this is true, JT might kill himself.”  My suicide alert bells went off. Truth be told, a lot of us who got conned by JT have been trained since childhood to respond to these kind of distress calls.

I wrote an email that day to JT.  I asked, "Are you okay?" I wanted to know where WE stood, whether he had been straight with me about our relationship. I said I was worried about him and that I hoped he had good counsel.

His reply was the strangest thing yet.

I won’t quote it b/c it was not on the record, but he denied the charges. Vociferously. He was unrepentant. (I keep saying "he," because that's how we know each other, and it's strange still to me to usurp his word to me).

JT said his real friends— lord help us— are all people in the movie biz he’s working with currently. He said they understand and respect his choices to be who he wants to be. Oh, I'm sure they're loyal to a fault...

He said that I, of all people, should understand these identity issues. There was this weird implication that if s/he is a gender outlaw, I was being unsupportive.

Talk about adding insult to injury. The person named "Terminator," JT Leroy, who wrote me with his first manuscript in hand was a S/M queer street hustler boy, and I never got the birth announcement that anything else was in the works.

Leroy once asked me to read in San Francisco on his behalf, when he published his book of short stories, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. I thought that was such a beautiful title. I  never imagined that the nervous heartbeat belonged to a redhead with several different pseudonyms.

The others who joined me in JT’s reading that night were all part of the San Francisco queer, hip, and sex worker counter-culture. There was a tremendous camaraderie and pride in JT’s success. If his story of the extreme dispossessed could make such a dent, it said something about all our efforts, about the lives we knew firsthand.

That camaraderie is still there, with a bit of jade thrown in. The dispossessed have a dark sense of humor. I’m sure I’ll be invited to a JT Wig-Burning in the future, and I’d like to wear my best lingerie. —Order a lot of chocolates, too.

As Dan Quayle once said, "A mind is a terrible thing to lose." And losing your credibility isn't very far behind it! I'm still worried about Emily The Terrible Termininator, but only the uncorrupted— by her deceit—  can help her now.

Update: Here's my latest post, 1/12/06:
Slash/Fraud: The Literary Origins of JT Leroy

Comments

[Lily Burana]

Yeah, I've got some egg-remover over here, too, as I scratch away at my face. I fell off the JT wagon quite a while ago--around the time he had Winona Ryder mooning over his distressed self, I thought, oh yeah, b.s. alert. There's something not quite right here...his story is too Dickensian PoMo hipster perfect, and I know too, too, too many hard-luck kids who want ALL the spotlight and all the love and all the credibility to believe the whole wigs-n-shyness mishegas.

The woman behind the curtain is deceitful above all things. Well played, schmuckette!

[Miss Syl]

Susie,

I've never posted anything on your blog before, but as a long time admirer of your work and how you live out there in the world it seemed like now would be the time to do it.

The thing that makes me saddest about your post today isn't the manipulative workings of this fraud of a human being and how s/he treated you and everyone else--it's that it sounds like you're angrier at yourself than you are at her. I bet I know how you must be feeling, because being someone who was raised to have a knee-jerk compassionate and "let me help you" response and to always put others' needs before my own, I know I'd have self-blame responses similar to those you wrote in your blog.

But since it's always easier to tell another person what you know is right rather than tell yourself, please allow me to say to you what I'm sure you would say to any friend of yours if they found themselves in your situation.

Don't you blame or be angry with yourself in any way for having been fooled by this predator. S/he may not have forced you to do anything against your will, but let's not forget that the person you *thought* you were doing those things for didn't exist. It's unlikely that if she'd told you who she was and what her plan was (to manipulate everyone for profit and fame) that you would have helped her at all. And she knew that, and so she lied and lied, and took advantage of your natural generosity and kindness. So, in a way, even though it may not seem like it at first, s/he DID make you do something against your will. She unwittingly made you part of a deception you would have never been involved in.

There are so few people in this world who are naturally giving the way it sounds like you are. And being a writer myself, I know first hand that there are *very* few artists like yourself out there who are willing to put their own egos and fears aside enough to champion and support others in their field. These are rare qualities you have, Ms. Bright, and don't let this person take them away from you!

When people like this come along, it makes us "nice girls" feel so completely bitter towards the world, and like fools for having a kind nature. Every day, I struggle with this, wondering if I'm a fool to care too much about things.

But really, I don't think I am. Or you are. Like I said, please don't let this person, or any other person who is so absent of your good qualities, take those qualities away from you. We don't have enough of you out there!

YOU are not the stupid one in this situation. You were duped, sure. But you behaved throughout with integrity, given the facts as you knew them at the time. Now that you know different facts, you are STILL behaving with integrity--even your attempts to write in a balanced way and shoulder some of the blame in your post shows this, when you really could (and should!) just be ripping into this person for everything sh/e did.

This woman, however, and her multiple alter-egos, has never behaved with integrity. She is the stupid one. And what goes around comes around; and it sure sounds like it's coming around for her.

Don't spend another minute agonizing over this. You were victimized; and as we women know, victims are the first ones to blame themselves, when they absolutely, posistively shouldn't!

Instead, congratulate yourself on being the kind, giving, honorable person that you are to your friends, and simply recognize, no matter how big the media frenzy surrounding this particular situaton is, that simply, this person was a bad friend choice, and now you can let him/her go. Simple as that. It's painful, but in the end, you're the one who's better off on every single front.

Which I'm sure you probably already know--but I just wanted to give you a little support.

[susie Bright]

Miss Syl, and Lily, thank you. It's true I've been kicking myself a bit, but I think after this confession, I may be ready to apply the balm.

You know, I just tried to explain this whole mess to my daugther, who said, "But mom, how could you not have known!" And it made me realize, geez, you know, hundreds of us were intimately fooled. What a racket. I feel like going out and renting that movie, "The Grifters."

[Lily Burana]

And now, James Frey, he of the millions of Oprah-sanctioned sales for "A Million Little Pieces" is under the magnifying glass over at The Smoking Gun. Must be huntin' season on phony-baloney writers.

[lisa]

I remember having doubts on whether the story was real or not when I first read Sarah. it seemed flavored to come off as more perverted than a story like that really is. it's never perverted to the kid, only to be observer. memories all edited. but I figured there had to be some truth to it....because who would lie about such a thing when a lot of the followers/readers would be kids that had lived through similar things?you have to tell the truth or it will only come back to haunt you. and honestly. would you lie to them, the lonely ones that feel there's somebody who understands them? the ones that through his eyes see that maybe things will get better?

that's what actually bothers me when the truth came; who the hell does this girl think she is? to make a big buck out of lies? to make a big buck out of pretending to be one of us?

I think no matter what the cool slacker generation think about this scam and how it makes JT Leroy seem even cooler to some, the girl behind JT will have lost more than she won. I honestly wouldn't want to be in her shoes...

[Tomo]

Wow, that's quite a story. I'd be quite irked too if I had a friend such as that, but at the same time the level of trust and care would make it hard for me to expel them out of my life just the same.

[tara bethune-leamen]

my comment on this situation on the Barista blog was that i enjoyed "JT Leroy's" writing and now i am enjoying the hoax. but of course after reading how you were personally affected i feel differently. i still think it was very ballsy. but sad for those directly and unknowingly involved.

[Nina]

The weirdest part of it is, how does this exposé affect our relationship to "Leroy" books? These are books that moved, excited, and inspired me to write again after a long hiatus (i even sent JT a long email thanking him). Of course if i read them again now it would be through a different critical filter, but nothing can take away the initial impact they had on me. Are they no longer good writing, just because they were part of an elaborate hoax? I can't decide how to feel about it.

[Jackson West]

Sigh. And on top of it all, looks like yet another blow to the Grey Lady's reputation, too. I'm kind of impressed by the intricacy and sheer genius of it all, but sickened by playing on people's sentiments and goodwill to garner favors and attention.

I have a feeling that 'JT' will end up on his / her feet, though -- you can smell the movie deal from a mile away.

[Steve Rhodes]

I was at that reading at Books, Inc. and it is strange now thinking back on it.

Don Baird who also read wrote this about it at the time:

http://www.donbaird.com/jtleroy.html

"Eventually I asked JT what I should think about the varied reports and theories and speculations about his true identity. He responded saying, "Everything you read or hear is all true." At that point I became a bit frustrated with the mystery. If JT were someone else that would mean all of our correspondences were elaborate tricks designed to fool me or keep me in the dark about his true identity. Just as I finished reading Sarah I became almost offended enough by the whole situation to kind of stop thinking about it, like I had been duped or had fallen prey to a manipulative gimmick. I stopped e-mailing JT...

...I finally was able to let go of my suspicions regarding the mystery of JT Leroy's identity. I finally was settled upon simply letting the work speak for itself and seeing the obvious bond Silke has developed with JT which she spoke of at the beginning of the reading. I'm confident that no one is putting anything over on anyone; it has more to do with an individuals need or want to maintain his personal privacy, to perhaps never become a "public figure." I consider his past and the many ways it could have produced a fragile or guarded person, or a damaged sociopathic fuck up, or a serial killer for that matter. But what it did produce is a survivor, and one of the most gifted writers I've ever read. His work is beyond exciting. Now watch, it will come out that JT is really some middle-aged female probation officer at some Appalachian county juvenile detention facility or something."

[Steve Rhodes]

And then there is this passage near the end of the Euro Disney story by "JT Leroy" which clearly
has many aspects which are fiction:

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/travel/tmagazine/25DISNEY.html?ex=1136955600&en=a35cabb1ff03cebf&ei=5070

"And there, far from the open-ended miseries of Paris, I am surrounded by these beautiful stories with their comforting endings. I don't have to toss and turn wondering what came of Pinocchio, as I did of the poor dauphin in jail, because I can go on the ride. I experience his redemption. I'm there to testify he's all right; his dad made him out of a log, but he's a real boy now, and the talking cricket seems just tickled pink about it all. Even the Blue Fairy is proud.

The only time I feel betrayed by Disney is when the story fails. I step on the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril roller coaster, whose only story is your memory of the film. It's Disney's compliance with the demand for G-force entertainment. I wrap my elbows around the thick padded bars that cage me and stick my fingers in my ears against a painful clanking noise. The ride is jerky; its sudden loops jam my head down. It banks awkwardly, and I am hurled side to side, banging my arm against the bars.

I climb off the ride nauseated, with a headache, and a growing bruise on my arm. I feel an inexplicable rage.

I expect Disney to be safe, like the Four Seasons of amusement parks, to anticipate and correct all foreseeable dangers and discomforts. Uncle Walt would've wanted it that way, don't you think? Disney is where, as a kid, I could not only wish for a parent who really cared but also expect it. They secure the safety belt, smiling, ruffling my hair. My bruise is a betrayal, a sellout. I don't go on any more roller coasters."

[DC]

Dear Susie,

It's interesting to read your post re. Leroy. Here's an article by Laura Barton of the UK Guardian on the matter:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1677659,00.html

I think the following is particularly worth quoting: "It is all a matter of authenticity. Is it because if JT LeRoy is not a drug-addled hobo hooker made good, we feel embarrassed because we've been conned, as if we paid full price for a Louis Vuitton purse only to find it was a fake? But nothing has been taken from us. The books remain: as startling and disturbingly beautiful as they ever were. There is nothing that has sullied the New York Times's assertion that "his language is always fresh, his soul never corrupt". And what strikes me more than anything is that in this age of overblown celebrity, where people such as Paris Hilton can be famous purely for being Paris Hilton, mightn't JT LeRoy represent the precise inversion of this? The work is all. The identity is irrelevant."

[This quote also usefully illustrates why I keep my identity as an occasional author of erotic fiction as anonymous as possible - I'm not interested in my identity (as opposed to my writing) being authentic]

[paula bomer]

Thank you, Susie, for sharing with us your personal JT Leroy story. I think it's important that people speak out about this issue. Most importantly, everything Mss Syl says is so RIGHT ON. You behaved with integrity and you have nothing of which to be ashamed. Integrity DOES matter in the world of publishing, not to mention in the world at large. Hoaxes differ--the details are what matter. If a hoax is reliant on conning many people, then dumping them to move on to higher prey, than it stinks and the person conning everyone deserves to have her reputation tarnished for bad faith and bad behavior. I'm sure there are examples of hoaxes that don't leave such a trail of used people.
I also want to say that I disagree that the work stands alone--some work does, but not JT Leroy's. His work was always surrounded and presented with his own life story--the two were inseparable. I don't know anyone who read his work outside of the framework of his life story. This is not how we approach everyone's work. And it changes our perception of it--not because we are naive, or impressionable, but because that it how perception works.
Anyway, thanks again Susie for sharing. Shame can be silencing, and that's part of the sheer nastiness of her con--bravo to you for talking.

[Camille]

Ahhhrgh! Susie I'm so upset. I didn't know about the hoax until now.....and Frey too? Its not that the writing is suddenly not good, but rather that I don't like feeling tricked. And I can't even imagine having a "friend" who suddenly was revealed to be a complicated avatar - just an imagined character in some future product of hollywierd. And since that was obviously the end goal I suppose it doesn't matter to he/she/it (the lie) that anyone might have gotten hurt along the way.

I imagine now would be a good time for you to have a few good friends over -people you can see and touch and feel and whom you have known and trusted for years. Celebrate friendship with these people and remind yourself why your so willing to give.

[Alana Noel Voth]

Dear Susie:

Thank you for the post re: JT Leroy. First and foremost don’t feel guilty for having loved JT Leroy or for having believed in his talent, championed him. You’re a generous and empathetic human being. So shame on him not you. I have my own heartache to contend with now concerning JT Leroy. Your blog was the first to turn me onto the hoax, although way back in 2001, I told my friend, Robbie, he had to read JT Leroy because JT’s writing was sublime and beautiful and he was an actual survivor. Robbie read the first few chapters of Sarah then gave it back to me saying, “This person is a huge phony.” At the time I attributed Robbie’s response to jealousy, as Robbie had always believed he was the most tortured soul on Earth. Cara Bruce turned me onto JT Leroy in 2000. She’d read some of my fiction and then told me something like, "You have to read this guy. You’ll love him.” I got a copy of Sarah, read it in four hours, went immediately to the computer, found JT's website, and then sent him a love letter (citing Cara Bruce as the person who'd turned me onto his work.) JT wrote back, thanking me. He wrote something like, "This means a lot to me, a note from another writer." Most writers aren’t worshipped until they’re dead (Stephen King, JK Rowling, Anne Rice, and JT Leroy being exceptions) When I found out Sharon Olds (my favorite poet) and Mary Gaitskill (one of my favorite fiction writers) mentored the fledgling JT Leroy I was astonished, amazed, and envious. But then I thought, gees, think of what the poor little boy/girl suffered. Look at his prose. JT Leroy, along with Sandra Cisneros, Michael Cunningham, and Joyce Carol Oates became my literary muse. While Al Lujan's story "Indio" (Best American Erotica 1995) was responsible for the genesis of my story, "Genuflection," (Best American Erotica 2005) JT Leroy's writing also inspired that story---a lot. I'd been told a thirty-something White woman has no business writing a first-person narrative from the perspective of a young biracial gay man living on the streets. I was even afraid Richard Labonte wouldn’t consider “Genuflection” for Best Gay Erotica because I wasn’t “Manny.” It never occurred to me to use a man's pseudonym and then create a male persona, a “real” Manny. (In graduate school, I “workshopped” an early draft of “Genuflection,” and one of my peers said, “If I’d never met you, Alana, I’d believe you were a Mexican homosexual.” I’d never felt more complimented in my whole life.) No, I’m not Manny, but he does represent aspects of my life. My son is biracial; I’ve had dear friends who were homosexual, and I’ve watched gay men make love; I’ve been financially destitute and desperate; and I admittedly suffer abandonment issues as my mother abandoned me to become a groupie then coc whore then stripper then prostitute and then finally an inmate in women’s prison. I understand Manny because I understand pain and loss. Writing is a place we confront demons. Imagine ourselves in another’s shoes. Recognize universal pain. Slay dragons. It’s place we’re redeemed despite our folly. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote artists created God in order to discover the divine in humanity. I’d like to believe JT Leroy created JT Leroy for much the same reason. But I don’t think so.

[JoJoba]

I hatte to say it, but you had it comming. You can't cheat an honest man. Was the writing of JY LeRoy really any good without the background story? Not really, but it was the story that got all these phony liberals heart string so they all bought into the JT backstory. The irony is that just like Mili Vanili the actaul artwork hasn't changed, the books are exactly the same as when they where first published.

[Rachel Cohen]

I think you're brave to admit that hyou were conned. Personally, I've always been an unbeliever, and I have friends who were horrified by my cynicism. But I don't take any pleasure in being correct--not when so many honorable people were conned. These people should be ashamed and they better not try to hide by some bogus "it's all performance art" excuse.

[Carly]

Susie, I pretty much echo what everyone else has said about how you can't blame yourself for being bighearted - something that I've felt fortunate to experience myself - but I'm interested to know your thoughts on this and the Frey situation on a different level: do you think that the fraud claims against both authors will change the marketplace on memoirs? Will the public ever want to believe the words of a non-fiction writer in the face of this, especially when one was personally endorsed by The O?

[Kate Black]

Susie, I read this and I feel like sending sympathy cards out to all of JT's "friends", because the loss seems as profound as when there is a death in the community. I'm sorry that someone manipulated and misrepresented himself to you for their own gain. It's enraging when anyone comes in and preys off our sympathies and exploits honest, good people.

In the immortal words of Joan Jett, "You don't lose when you lose fake friends."

[David Noble Dandridge]

Me and my friends are big JT fans. One of my best friends is a social worker in San Francisco. She’s getting her PhD in Psychology and was actually thinking about doing her practicum at the center where “JT” was “saved.” She still believes. I was on the fence until I read your post.

I dug out my old copy of Cyborgasm 2 after I read the New Yorker article. I listened to “Viscous Panties” and thought, my god, could this woman really be JT Leroy?

This whole thing sucks.

I was never a big fan of “Sarah”, but “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” blew my doors. Now I’m afraid to re-read it. Knowing JT’s story before I read it probably colored my appreciation of it, and I’m afraid knowing it’s a hoax will make me more critical and realize that I initially saw something that was not there.

Don’t feel bad. At least you were the genuine one in all this.

[Susie Bright]

Some of you have questioned, "Was JT's writing any good in the first place, or were you snookered by his back story?"

Some of his writing is marvelous, unforgettable. My personal favorite is his short story "Natoma Street."

JT's work was inconsistent— he needed an experienced editor. You could say that about most writers. He got a lot of mentoring and editorial assistance in the beginning, and virtually none at all as he became a superstar, which is probably why his most recent work has been easy to poke holes in.

I have heard from one friend, too mortified to post here, who says she wrote a whole story for him that the two of them were supposed to collaborate on. And he got the check of course. So who knows how many people "wrote" for JT.

I'm a big believer in editing. I love my editors, and I love editing people who's work I care about. But it's like being a therapist.. you elicit their best work, you don't do it for them.

I wasn't drawn in by JT's backstory b/c I didn't know it. In the beginning, He wrote me and said he was being mentored by a couple writers who are friends of mine, who I knew well and respected. That was was got me past the first line. And then I started reading, and I was hooked. There were lots of messy parts, but the good parts were really good.

To think he was so young, was also part of the excitement. You see someone with a lot of talent who seems to be just breaking out of their egg, and you get ambitious for them.

Now that i realize the youth and inexperience was just a persona, it adds to the toothache.

It is true that when JT was famous, he found he could be sloppy and incoherent and no one cared. I'm sure that calcified their cynicism. I say they, because this so clearly seems to be a group effort.

This business of new authors finding that fiction doors are closed to them for major publishing deals is no joke. Everyone is under pressure to claim that their entire imagination is their life story, and you can see the train wrecks that ensue.

There is also a big problem with knowing that it matters more to be young, blonde and indiscreet— in terms of furthering your publishing career— than it does to have an iota of talent.

Did any of you see how the Times of London made this point recently? They pulled a prank on publishers. They sent around two VERY famous, LEGENDARY author's stories, with their names stripped off. The stories themselves are superb examples of both writers' work.

All the big agents and publishers received the stories as if from a new, middleaged novelist looking for a deal. No pictures were sent, or scintiallating personal material. None of the recipients recognized the authors. And in each case, they were turned down flat.

So you see, V. S. Naipaul couldn't get a deal today if he tried, starting out.

All this is to say I have a lot of sympathy for new writers feeling desperate, and trying to be creative, but clearly there are boundaries to such feelings! Frey and Leroy didn't have any foresight and way too much hubris. In both cases, you wonder about their appetite for risk. They didn't exactly hide their tracks, and have taunted this spectacle all along.

[Ron]

Well, if V.S. Naipaul were trying to start out today, he wouldn't turn it a story that sounds like it was written thirty years ago... and the article doesn't say that nobody could identify the authors. It does say they didn't hear back from a lot of people, many of whom might have said, "Here's some jerk trying to plagiarize V. S. Naipaul." Or not. We just don't know. (Also, the other guy's not THAT famous; he just happened to have won a literary prize, which we should all remember is no proof of actual literary merit.)

But that's beside the point--congrats to getting this essay picked up by the Huffington Post, Susie! And double congrats for having so much thoughtful commentary from your community of fans here, as opposed to the Beavis and Butthead stuff it's attracting there...

[Laurie Mann]

Gosh, Susie, I read way too many writers/editors/fans because yours was either the third or fourth blog on either JT or the guy who conned Oprah. John Scalzi says "January is National Literary Fraud Month" (http://www.scalzi.com/mt2/mt-tb.cgi/3560).

I always think of the book Go Ask Alice - it was huge when we were teenagers back in the '70s. It's supposed to be the honest-to-God diary of a young drug addict. It made a massive impression on me. Would it have made the same impression if it had been written by Carolyn Keene? I don't think so...

But JT did more than "merely" publish a book posing as a street person. She suckered in a lot of other people, and not merely a publishing house. That was unnecessary, and, frankly, implies more than a little touch of mental illness.

[David Maclaine]

I think there are some things that are easier to see from a distance than from up close. I just heard about this "breaking" J.T. Leroy story tonight at an alumni gathering, and was puzzled that this was suddenly a big revelation. I had been hearing for a while that there was this middle-aged woman posing as an HIV postive kid who had survived horrendous abuse. I had first run into the story in fictional form in Armistead Maupin's "The Night Listener" (published in 2000) which I had picked up in 2001 to read on an airplane. Then a couple of years ago there had been an article in the New Yorker, I think, which had more or less told the real- life story that had been the foundation of Maupin's book, and strongly suggested the nature of the hoax. I had no idea that there were still many believers in the J.T. Leroy myth. But as I say, somtimes distance helps. I encountered the story only after the debunking had begun. It all reminds me of a conversation I had just as the invasion of Iraq was beginning. At the time I was seeing a woman who works at the CIA, and I mentioned that I had started out believing that Saddam probably had WMDs but that the process by which the administration had tried to prove the case, and the rebutals by arms control insiders had convinced me that they probably weren't there. She said that based on the reports she had seen (her department was NOT in the Middle East)there didn't seem to be any doubt that the weapons were there. Why was it easier to see the truth from farther away? I think because I didn't have a "Leroy" or Chalabi exerting personal charm while weaving these stories that meshed so perfectly with my hopes and fears, and so didn't become invested in upholding the truth of the tales they told. In Portland, where I live, there's a guy who apparently makes a living on the "Depends" scam, who tells strangers he needs money to buy adult diapers for his mother. We think we've just figured out who his real mother is, NOT bedridden and incontinent, just a neighbor with some interesting cats and a drug-addicted son. People have been writing about the scamster regularly for a couple of years now, so no one who reads the local papers should have any real doubt about what's going on. But the man keeps showing up to tell his little tale about an emergency and people keep giving the money, so I guess that when you're there in person and haven't read about it he's convincing. You were especially vulnerable to "Leroy" because "he" got to you early, and you probably remained convinced precisely because you weren't in such close contact more recently when the deception was becoming threadbare. These things happen at all levels, from petty scam to national catastrophe. This case is more interesting to writers because someone was able to create a compelling and believable character, not inside a piece of literature, but as part of the delivery system for the the work itself. I wonder what it would be like to have lots of personal contact with someone only to discover that the Copperfield or Humbert or Portnoy you'd come to know so well in person was a literary creation rather than a "real" human being?

[FlippyO]

The article in the New Yorker was by Tad Friend, about Anthony Godby Johnson. It seems fascinatingly similar to this story (I'd never heard of JT LeRoy until today), so I wonder what the timeline is, and if "JT" could've gotten some ideas from "Anthony". "Anthony" was on AOL and was very accessible and seemingly friends with everyone (I exchanged a few emails with him in the early 90's) - hey, maybe "he" was friends with Emily Albert.

[Mack Friedman]

Ahh, Susie, thanks so much for posting this. I've talked with the artist formerly known as JT for several years, like you, and I published what I thought was a short oral history of his sex work experience in my book "Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture," a popular history about male and transgender American sex work. His was the only history I took and published on faith; everybody else I met on the streets. And he had every chance in the world to tell me in confidence that his story was a facade; or, he could have declined its use at the last minute, if he didn't want to tell me the truth. While I can accept this swirling game about literary identity when it comes to the fiction and the authorial persona, and even appreciate the unmasking of the literary world's obsession with sensationalist memoirs -- the genre has become a sad stream of one-upping fuck-ups -- I have a serious problem with the conscious falsification in an historical, documentary work. I mean, you don't fuck with someone else's work from the inside like that.

And I'm also pissed cuz "JT" formed serious and obsessive emotional connections with some of my closest writer friends, playing on their vulnerability to street kids. It was a long, cold, play; it was the ultimate hustle. These are good, sweet, caring, smart as hell people, who know the game and streets. You're not the only one. And it's not right. I don't give a fuck that "JT" took the literary spotlight from some deserving ex-sex-workers, myself included; I don't need or want a spotlight on the darker corners of my past. People who need to read my work will find it on their own. What I'm most angry about is the wanton disrespect for other writers, all in the name of PR. It's not a new thing in the publishing world, but it really took it to a whole new level, didn't it?

All best,
Mack Friedman
--the real thing

[C.S. Lewiston]

This hoax, this kind of bullshit is what breeds cynicism. It's one reason why many formerly decent people have thrown out their decency, bought into the lie that kindness equals weakness, and thrown in with the scoundrels, frauds, scumfuck politicians, televangelists and other crypto-fascist lowlifes. Hey, decent people have to work their asses off just to be able to eat, scumbags profit handsomely from what little work they do, and politically, they own the place, so, they think, why not be on the side that's going to be winning from now on? Is this the decade of the scoundrel or what?

[Mojo]

That's a sad and terrible story, Susie. But thank you for sharing it with us.

[Ducky DooLittle]

I am so horrified by the whole thing that I don't have a lot of words except that I'm sorry you got pulled in to that. Please try not let that person destroy your ability to trust again. Love ~ Ducky

[Susie Bright]

That's so true about how a "little distance" imparts some wisdom... I already feel older and it's only been 24 hours. Next week I'm going to write another story about some of the related issues that have come up since this discussion started. So many of you have insightful in your comments, and I am having a major mull-fest. Pardon me if I'm not my usual spontaneous self, reacting to each comment in turn. I need to sit in this stew for a bit.

s

[Carol Queen]

Susie, this is certainly deep. I am so sorry to hear how personally this got to you. And I am really fascinated, the more I hear from everybody, how much nut-ball-ness has been associated with knowing JT, all the phone call zooeyness. Like, was this a deeply necessary element of the hoax, people getting crazy calls? Or does the JT persona give Emily or whoever's calling license to let out her inner weird?

I read at one of the first Sarah readings, and thought the book was amazing but sketchy. I thought the raccoon penis bone bit was super-sketchy. And felt the read-for-me-thing was affected in a particular way that felt, well, sketchy. But Sarah's lyricism was attractive, and at first I thought, so what?

But then Ron Turner gave me the kid-ho-with-snail book to read and I thought (given that I already was pretty sure it was gonna be sketchy) that the set-up, perverted trick and all that, was offensive. And the more I read now about the Leroy Conspiracy, or whatever they would like their band name to be next, the more insulted I get about the way tropes in this writer's work are stereotypical. I'm irritated as a sex worker about "Leroy" passing as a sex worker, tho who knows, maybe Emily's been one, I don't know, which would give her something to riff off of. (A whore mom turning out her little boygirl at a tender age isn't exactly a pro-sex-work statement, though, is it, now that we see it's made up?)

And I am irritated about the persistent "I'm transgendered, leave me alone, I don't have to show you my passport." I dunno, perhaps Emily identifies as trans. Perhaps. But if she doesn't, she's appropriating something else she shouldn't. "JT" is right: transfolk have plenty of trouble w/o the likes of, you know, JT.

It's one thing to write from a particular sex/gender/culture space, even if it isn't your own, as long as you can bypass the stereotypes: to me, that just makes our worlds bigger. When a writer succeeds at that, as you say in your first post, it's "bravo." (I was actually going to write my dissertation about writers who cross these lines, and I'm sure you know better than I, there are tons of them.) Even when it's not successful it's culturally interesting, because of the writer's assumptions about what elements will telegraph gender or sexuality or whatever to the reader. Even if they're wrong or offensive or shallow, it can still be deconstructed, because, success or failure, that's one way our culture teaches gender and other identities.

And that's what I think we should do now with the Leroy works: deconstruct them, that is, if we still want to read them at all.

[Greta Christina]

I just want to add one thing to the "Don't feel bad about getting fooled" chorus. And that's this: If you're an essentially trusting, generous person who most of the time takes people at their word unless you have an obvious reason not to, you do pay a price -- you will occasionally get fooled. (And I don't mean "may" get fooled. I mean "will." It's gonna happen.)

But the price for being an essentially suspicious, guarded person who most of the times assumes people are trying to scam you unless you have proof that they're not... the price for that is much, much worse. The price for that is a miserable, lonely, cut-off life. So if you're getting down on yourself for getting scammed now and then, consider the alternative.

P.S. FYI, "Go Ask Alice" *is* fake. Look it up on Snopes if you don't believe me.

[Don Baird]

thank you so much for so thoroughly sharing your feelings on this whole JT Leroy hoax. As it all started coming to light with the Stephen Beachey story I just started feeling more and more like forgetting about the whole thing once and for all, shutting myself off from any further investigation on the matter, just forgetting about JT Leroy for good. I read his first book at the recommendation of a friend who told me a bit of his background. I was immediately skeptical but was suddenly carried away by his written word--this work was extraordinary to me, a pure joy to read and i was enchanted with each page i turned. That's when i first sent him an e-mail telling him how much i enjoyed his first novel. This started a regular corespondence between us that thrilled me endlessly--i was in regular communication with this gifted young writer who survived this incredible life of neglect and abuse through therapy and through writing and was beginning to enjoy a pretty massive recognition as a literary talent. We emailed frequently and i soon got a racoon penis bone in the mail from him. I was genuinely surprised that he knew my writing for the sf bay times and seemed somewhat familiar with my history I tried several times to ask him out to a rock show or a number of other events because i really wanted to meet him and at that point it didnt seem outside of the realm of possibility but there was always a reason he couldn't make it, out of town, meeting with a well known hollywood actress producer, exploring location possibilities with gus van sant, etc. Eventually he confessed that his reclusive behavior was mainly to keep him away from an element he feared would re-enter his life and destroy him, his drug abuse. I felt so bad for him, the frail damaged results of a young life so confused and harrowing and almost other-worldly.
When i was invited to read at his second book release i couldn't have felt more honored and excited to have been included. there was a video camera set up to record the readings for jt to watch later and the place was packed with lots of people keeping their eyes peeled for an incognito JT sighting. just as things were about to start a phone call from JT to Silke Tudor who organized the reading was announced with a healthy amount of dramatic flourish.
It was then that i began to think this whole hidden identity thing was starting to get up around my neck.

more and more famous people fell into line on the list of JT Leroy supporters or champions. Soon some really big names were doing readings and talking about him and writing songs about him. A movie was made of The Heart is Decietful...featuring some prominent actors, writers, performance artists, rock and roll stars, etc.

i went to a screening of the movie and i really thought it was a great work--true to the book and created in a way that made me think jt would have had to have been very present and involved in the project to have made it feel so authentic. I reviewed the film in my column and several months later i was curious about whether the movie had found a distribution deal yet.

i hadn't written JT in years but i dashed off a quick note with a link to my review and a simple question, when would the public finally get to see the movie?

he responded immediately and graciously saying there had just been a distribution deal made and that i should contact one of the assistant producers for the project as she could really use my help with this, which i took to mean he'd like some more press on the theatrical release details and that sort of thing. That sort of made me feel a bit strange--like rust never sleeps, the jt leroy publicity machine is one train that keeps on rolling.

i remembered getting another letter from him during the last election in which he endorsed Kerry and said he had been lucky enough to meet Kerry and work with his campaign enough to know that he trusted him and thought he'd be the leader we need and urged all to go out and vote.

I thought that sounded really out of character but not entirely unreasonable.

something about that letter made me think "Yeah right." this reclusive young literary darling ex-child prostitute with HIV, a trans-gender public identity working as a disguise frequently didnt seem like the type you'd find joining in at campaign headquarters, meeting Senator Kerry for a chat about the issues.

I started to feel like something strange indeed was going on and as more about it became revealed i just kind of pulled away from the whole thing. i have other friends who are in contact with JT by e-mail almost daily and i'm really wondering how they are feeling now. I wonder how Shirley Manson who wrote a song about JT is feeling. What does Madonna think? or Mary Gaitskill and Lou Reed? and all those talented writers who were so moved by his story and the incredible writing they would do anything they could to help him or protect him and support his choices to remain so private or help his literary career along to the next level and it's plain to see that JT Leroy was helped onward and upward by everyone he became familiar with...EVERYONE.
the idea of a literary hoax is kind of intriguing--but past literary hoaxes have never required such a completely active effort to maintain, such a full time web of deception it took an entire family to pull it off.

Part of me thinks it is all pretty funny but another part of me remembers the thrill of thinking how great it was that i was getting to know this incredible young writer with everyone of his emails. Our emails were a constructed effort just furthering my relationship with a person who does not exist.

The writing is still great, though Sarah kind of ended up like a tranny version of Smokey and the Bandit or some such bad hillbilly action comedy. The heart is decietful was the real deal though --an incredible work thought to be autobiographical--and it is one of my favorite books ever. And it has been made into a great film by Asia Argento, and how does she feel about it? Are certain people actually in on it? so many questions.

just yesterday i got an email from JT or rather "the JT Leroy newsletter--the hoax edition #3"-a very stylized flashy affair about a new song by thistle inspired by the life and music of johnny cash and tied into the recent bio-pic and a compilation record of other artists homages to the man. I just shook my head in amazement--will it ever end? one of the last items of the newsletter offers a t-shirt designed by Lindsey Kuhn for sale which reads "I am the real JT Leroy" on front with a wig and dark glasses on back. This is getting downright transparent--and i'm appalled by the cash-in audacity of squeezing more money from this ongoing hoax. This kind of decietful comes from a big financial plan, a planned and charted jump into the extreme and aggressive marketing of a literary figure.
I have to wonder if JT feels any particular way about the many people who feel they know him and have stood behind his need to remain so mysterious and sheltered, the many who felt a certain kinship with the person emailing them just to chat about normal daily occurences or what music they were listening to. This kind of decietful isn't from the heart either. It's pretty mean and cold.

I really dont know how to feel about it anymore--i guess its currently up to the individual to decide whether he exists or does not. his publishers are business as usual, i assume many fans will chose to believe he is indeed a person, one who inspired and touched their lives.

where is it going to go from here i wonder. Hollywood is my guess--literary hoax of the century--fascinating film about pulling off the caper. maybe the Olsen twins will be cast as the public JT impostor---wait, maybe they already are!

i want to see the eventual responses of all celebs he touched. i also want to re-read the stuff. i might want an apology but honestly i think no one will get that.

[W.B. Reeves]

Susie,

Let me add my voice to the others here in saying that you have nothing to be embarassed about.

In this world it is a given that open hearts will attract those who are all appetite. To be a giver is to run the risk of falling prey to the takers. Still, I'd rather be you than JT.

I've not read any of the books and had never heard of JT prior to the scam being exposed. I have known a number of folks who were sexually abused and exploited as children. Some were coping by transfiguring their pain into art. I can't accept the notion that some mercenary hoaxer, however talented, has the right to exploit their suffering.

That's how I see it. Anyone who would do what JT has done is the ethical equivalent of a rapist. Actually, that's too charitable. A rapist can only rape one victim at a time. JT, by pretending to a false authenticity in his/her books has psychicly raped every reader who thought they had found a fellow sufferer, advocate or inspiration in their pages. For true survivors of sexual abuse it amounts to a second violation.

I can't really say more on this or I'll work myself into a greater fury than I already have. Please remember that you are the good guy. Nothing this contemptable vampire may have done alters that.

[Joa]

It's funny. I've been openly pretending to me JT LeRoy for years, though less convincingly than Savannah Knoop obviously.

I kind of thought most people understood it JT's existence was rather tenuous and were happy to appreciate what flowed from the identity all the same.

In any case, I'm just loving all the crazy JT incensed rants appearing across the web at lightning speed!
Thanks for hosting this debate Susie. All the best, Joa Fruit (Feel free to imitate me anytime you wish, just send me the photos).

[Joa]

Oh, sorry I forgot to leave my URL:
http://www.joafruit.com/you-as-jt/

If you've also been indulging in the odd occasional Jt-duping (and your name isn't Savannah Knoop) - send me your photos please for my site.

joafruit(at)gmail(dot)com

[ZBS]

im surprised by the queer community members who claim to have been duped all along and yet still use phrases like "he" = "she" as part of their surprise reaction to this mess. if you were duped all along, then "he"="she" for quite some time now, no? Trans people are often associated with trickery and deception and the JT scandal and its emphasis on the "real gender" rather than the actual hoax perpetuated plays into the very transphobia that the Albert clan concocted. Where's the critical analysis of some of these reactions?

[Bookpimp]

As HST would say, it’s vicious bullshit!

The epitaph should read, “Here lies JT Leroy, the product of a failed middle-aged musician with fading rock-star ambitions who turned her lurid pedophile sexual fantasies into a mini-literary sensation.”

Royalty checks sent to dummy corporations in Nevada; Warholesque public inarticulateness; bullshit transgenderfuck politics; obsequious mewlings and the subtle ego gratification used as a step ladder to higher social strata. Why did we not see this a mile away? Why is it that we can be so outraged as this motley crew moves the peg another notch up the chart of audacious literary cons? It’s all our fault, really.

Yes Virginia, publishing culture these days is just that miserable.

Face it, Leroy was nothing more than a literary pet rock. With all the soul-baring, hanky-waving, yet redemptive memoirs out there these days, it was just a matter of time before a chancer saw an opening. Nothing like a panicked midnight call from a struggling writer to assuage the guilt of our success and refresh the memory of the loneliness of our youth. Ridiculous. Let’s hope the object lesson is that writing can still be regarded as a craft and the backstory is irrelevant. Good, clean prose that tells a good story always finds its way. Leave the caterwauling and drunkalogues for Jerry Springer and Alcoholics Anonymous.

I could get all worked up at the hagiography, but I can’t. I used to work with street kids and hustlers in San Francisco. A lot of them are dead now and never got a book deal. I was pretty bent out of shape at the time when Vollman’s Gravity’s Angel came out. He hung with and wrote about some Polk Street kids I knew and I thought he should have put down the reporter’s notebook and helped them, rather than being a stenographer to their misery. Vollman’s got his National Book Award now and the kids are long forgotten. I guess our collective fantasy willed Leroy into being. It’s as if we wanted one of these broken hustlers to make it.

At least I’ll be left with a giggle about this whole imbroglio. I personally love the hubris of the band Thistle. Albert & Co. couldn’t leave well enough alone, so they form a band with Leroy writing the lyrics. Finally, the sought after adoring crowds pack the nightclub-albeit to catch a glimpse of the reclusive lyricist. But a crowd is still a crowd. Jim Morrison turned out to be a fat, drunken blowhard, but for awhile, he sure did look good in them leather pants. Can’t be sure if the same can be said about this sorry mess.

[feithy]

I had something similar happen to me last year. Not nearly on such a grand scale, but the thud, the whack to the gut, are very familiar.

I hope you heal soon. :)

Feithline

[andrea]

Susie, as others have said more eloquently, you have nothing to be embarassed about: you put your heart out there and were taken by a con.
That said, I always thought "Go Ask Alice" seemed fishy, and now I learn that it was written by the author of Nancy Drew? Wow. I guess I should've seen that coming.

[Richard Foxall]

So the writing was good. Equally authentic books about kids in the system ("Ellen Foster") that don't hide that they are fiction don't get nearly the play that JT did for "Sarah." I wouldn't mind the hoax if we really learned something from it, but didn't "The Night Whisperer" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" and, oh, a whole lot of pioneering books and movies about gender identity cover this ground? And won't some of the folks taken in admit that some of the appeal of JT was the prurience and vividness of a life we were spared, which might now turn out to be a leeetle inaccurate and certainly nothing you couldn't learn about by reading even a little bit on websites specializing in reports of child exploitation? I work with abused and neglected children five days a week, and the pornographic aspect of this is the wet dream that somehow this horrific back story could be salvaged by the queer-Disney outcome of beautiful literature. It's a starry-eyed, but not very helpful, wish on the part of the credulous. Congratulations on being so non-cynical, but don't real abused kids with AIDS (yes, they exist)need something more than a literary agent? Like, a therapist who isn't in on a hoax? There's probably a real JT Leroy on a corner on Polk Street right now. Why not take him/her to dinner or pay for a warm room so he/she can skip hustling for one night? How about if all the proceeds from the books go to the Larkin Street Youth Center, or to fund Children of the Night in LA? Or is it better (listen up, Carrie Fisher!) to buy ovepriced sushi for one impostor?

[JL]

I'm a woman who suffered really horrible abuse from birth til finally being able to live on my own. My life involved alcoholism(my mother's)and sexual abuse within the family...beatings, nothing but lies, emotional torture--all in the midst of a phoney, outwardly upper-middle-class lifestyle. I have real stories that rival anything Laura Albert concocted. For this reason, I have never been able to stomach "fictional" treatments of cancer, abuse, pedophilia...I had the real things in spades, and it's just the worst kind of porn to me to read fictional imaginings of those things--MY quirk, my loss perhaps, I admit. But I can manage to read nonfiction--in fact, it's healing and comforting, for the obvious and much-stated reason that it helps one realize that one isn't a freak, having lived through such things. That's why I am filled with grief at and hatred for "J.T."'s scam--why I think it matters that it's NOT true...and also, I must say, beautifully penned as your own experience is--my god: I wished and looked all my childhood for a mother or parent or mentor figure that would help in any small way possible...only to never, ever meet anyone with the "buttons" you and many other writers apparently have that were pushed by "Leroy".
I wonder--was I simply unlucky, or was I not agressive enough as an 11 year old, seeking help and emotional support? Because my experience was(as a not-unattractive kid with above average intelligence and artistic talent)that ultimately, NO adult who wasn't tied to me by blood (and many who were--i.e. aunts, etc.)wanted anything other than the most superficial interaction with me--even those who saw the abuse and drinking and neglect. It just wasn't their problem. What I saw were people who seemed to get bored quickly and drop a kid as a project as easily as they'd pick them up. So, I'm shocked to read of all these warm-hearted people who gave J.T. so much...and wonder what his magic was, that I lacked. It's really sick on so many levels. I can only hope that it comes home to roost--that's how lessons are learned. Karma must exact its price. Real children feel real pain, somewhere...and stunts like this only serve to avert good intentions that should go to the right places.

[Malcolm]

well ya'll, it is still suddenly the 21st century... and who knows what all else is possible, and what other kind of 'magnificent' IT-related bullshit is in store for the kind-hearted and sympathetic? it's all kind of beautiful-- in a shitty, jarring way. to me, this whole thing has so far read like philip k. dick and jacqueline susann collarborating on a week-long PM Magazine expose with john rechy. it seems sort of indicative of "today's media-saturated culture," which has apparently even begun to weft its way down into the netherworld of us folks who live outside the mainstream (or what have you) and who maybe felt a sort of collective immunity to being duped in the same way that those clueless, ugly americans who respond to viagra/penis enlargement phishing emails are. in some ways, it seems like the wave of the future.

[Mark Ewert]

Hey folks- I tried to post a few days ago- but I don't think it went through. I got scammed by JT too (I set up a reading for Sarah when it first came out, at Books Inc.) -but I was taken for nowhere near the emotional drain/trainwreck that people like Susie and Dennis Cooper were. Dennis talked to Terminator for years and years and years! Jesus! There's good stuff on his blog about it- thought I'd pass it on:
http://denniscooper.blogspot.com/

-Regards,
Mark

[Gini]

Thank you so much for this, Susie. Can I tag along with you to the JT wig-burning? I'll bring the chocolates!

Normally I'd be thinking that this was pretty punk rawk and Warhol-esque - fabricating a whole literary persona and publishing acclaimed work and attracting fawning celebrity friends - but what I'm sickened by most of all here is how Ms. Albert & Co. played the HIV and transgender cards, milking those for all they were worth. That's just so morally repugnant to me. Especially when there are already plenty of artists and writers out there who struggle with these issues on a daily basis - only without money, medicine, food, a publisher, a solid support system, and famous friends fighting to be the first ones to help out when their flaky writer friend runs into a spot of trouble.

Then again, humorless little me, who the hell am I? Ms. Albert got her novel published, and she's probably richer than I'll ever be, so fuggit.

[Claudia]

I'm so unhip. This is the very first I've heard of JT Leroy or the hoax business.

I want to echo both what David Maclaine said about it being easier to see these things from a distance, and what others have said about not feeling self-critical about being taken in: the alternative is to harden your heart.

On a smaller, less newsworthy (or literary!) scale, friends and I went through much the same thing (minus the body double business). Most of the interaction was online, and it's easy to be dismissive of it on several counts for that reason. It's also easy in retrospect to look at the overall pattern of behavior and realize there was something OFF.

But the reality was, there were lots of us who befriended someone who lied for years about most aspects of herself, for reasons that seemed to me insufficient and bizarre. And I haven't stopped largely taking people at their word; I don't think I'd want to. Perhaps my pattern recognition has improved and I wouldn't be taken in again... who can say?

"My house I leave open, my faith lies with friends/ If I can’t trust my instincts, I’ll lose in the end/ I’d rather risk injury, then be on my guard/ That side of the moon is too dark." -- Tret Fure

[Elaine Soloway]

The whole episode brings to mind the John Guare play,"Six Degrees of Separation?" Here's the Library Journal's description,
"When a young man enters the Fifth Avenue home of Flanders and Ouisa Kittredge claiming to be a friend of their children and son of actor Sidney Poitier, the couple is charmed by his manners, wit, and intelligence. When the Kittredges discover that "Paul" isn't all he claims to be, they find themselves stuck between embarrassment and fascination." That sounds about right.

[Tsaurah]

The enormous irony of J.T./(Emily's) book being called
The Heart Is Decietful Above All Things equals the enormous poverty of spirit, the lack of decent humanity that he/she displayed in perpetuating this hoax. Having read the Beachy article and the earlier posts on your blog, Susie, I'm totally convinced of the hoax. Frankly, when I first read his/her work, I found the writing almost too beautiful. I like dirt that stinks like dirt, give me Hubert B.Selby, I thought, give me Wojnarowicz's Memories That Smell Like Gasoline ( even if it is "non-fiction",) and therefore I never became a "J.T." fan.
Even so, I feel disgusted and outraged the way he/she exploited the persona of a suffering street kid.
I want to add my voice to the many others on the blog that urge you and others who were friends of J.T's to not fault yourselves for your open hearts. In so many ways this whole sinking morass reflects how much we need to hope, how much we need to believe that salvation is possible for even the most desperte and forlorn among us. And maybe it is, maybe Salvation is still possible for all the fallen angels, except for possibly Emily and her cohorts, they seem to be in a class by themselves.

[Susan]

I was suspicious of JT Leroy from the beginning, but had no idea how deep the hoax actually was. I loved his writing, but saw through it, saw it as the work of an educated person (maybe even someone who'd taken a writing course or several)who was either exaggerating or exploiting his deprived background to get attention, to get published--because "creative non-fiction" is so popular these days. And I hate it when writers do this.

But I can't help admiring (though I know she's manipulative and sick) what Emily (Laura?) Albert pulled off. Not only did she create some pretty good fictional narratives, she created another narrative of the supposed author, this frail, shy, damaged person trying so hard to make something of his life. Stories within stories within stories . . .

And the kicker--knowing that there is no real JT Leroy makes me all the more impressed with Albert's writing, her creativity . . .Why did she have to run this scam? Well, Susie, I'm sure YOU would have published her without the back-story, but who else would have? Not many. She never would have had the wide readership or fame "JT Leroy" enjoyed.

Maybe this will drive a stake in the heart of "creative non-fiction" once and for all. Writers (even journalists, god help us) are by nature liars--we can't help ourselves! We're creative; our fingers (or pens) embroider everything they touch. Over and over it happens . . . writer found to be lying . . . James Frey, too. Why are people surprised that writers create narratives (often especially about their own lives) that may or may not be factual? Because, folks, that's what we do . . . We lie until we uncover the truth that lies (hah!) at the base of all lies.