Slash/Fraud: The Literary Origins of JT Leroy

What are the imaginative roots of JT 'Terminator' Leroy? JT’s enigma is borne of sticky inspiration, not by-the-numbers construction. How did his creator, Laura Albert, cook up such a dazzling, troubled boy? Where did the immaculate conception take place?

Many hoped that some sympathetic genesis could be found in Laura's own history: was she once an addict, a whore, an abused child?  Alas, Albert is only an heir to privilege and shelter.

The truth is this: Laura Albert wins the crown for the most notorious Slash Fiction author of all time.  Yes, Slash Fiction, that wanderground of heterosexual womenfolk who write gay porn about the male legends of our time.

What’s amazing is that Albert could take something that by its nature, is a pretense, and graduate it to a full-scale hoax.

What about Leroy smells like Slash?

Kirk: Well, Mr. Spock, if we can't disguise you, we'll find some way of explaining you.

Spock: That should prove interesting.

JT’s writing  is filled with S/M, homosexual, violent, romantic sex. You might think such territory would be the province of a seasoned leatherman, but that would make you old-school. For at least the last ten years, 99% of all such erotica has been written by heterosexual women. Laura Albert fits the profile like an FBI binder.

Slash Fiction is an internet phenomenon that grew out of the sci fi fanzine communities. It’s any piece of fiction where you write an outrageous sex episode between two of your favorite  male-bonded characters from a canonical pop-culture source: Batman/Robin, Kirk/Spock.  (You see where the slash comes from...)

It started with Star Trek and went forth into every galaxy: Harry Potter Slash. Adam-12 Slash. Cheney/Bush.

The reason you don't usually see Slash in print, is because it is deliberate copyright violation. If you publish a story about Robin’s boner for Batman— (as I found out when I published Best American Erotica '99, with Kelly McQuain's "Je T'Aime Batman, Je T'Adore") DC Comix will call the publisher with a cease and desist order. These characters are owned by their authors.

So Slash has never made any money. It  flourishes online, a volunteer army of fantasiasts.

But, who, you may ask, is Laura's male-duo inspiration? Isn’t JT a lone wolf, aside from his hapless mother?

This is where it gets interesting, and painful. Laura's Slash-muse was undoubtedly author Dennis Cooper, and the late George Miles. Dennis has written five books in homage to George, called "The George Miles Cycle," and has said that every protagonist he ever devised is modeled on his boyhood friend.

George and Dennis went to high school together. Dennis first met him out on the athletic field as George was careening through a rather heavy acid trip. Suffice to say, their bond met the legendary vibe associated with Slash Olympians.

JT first approached Cooper, by phone/email, at the beginning what would become the Sarah manuscript.  Laura worshiped Dennis— a superfan. I’m sure Dennis would have been kind to Laura if he had been introduced to her as a reader— but  his reactions were deeper this time. It wasn’t "Laura" or "Emily Frasier" (another of her pseuds) who reached out to him; it was JT, the ghost of George Miles crossed with Oliver Twist.

Close readers of literary fiction respect Dennis Cooper, myself included. His writing is as transgressive as DeSade and as eloquent as the Bible. He has authorial gifts that most of us will never manifest. He also specializes in stories about young men who have been used, sold, and fucked into a kind of oblivion that makes it hard to keep your grip.

JT engaged Cooper as his first serious editorial mentor, and kind friend. This is the kind of relationship Laura specialized in soliciting— she was the talkwhore of all creation. Don't claim you wouldn't have fallen for it if you weren't on the other end of the line. It was diabolical.

One day JT was privy to a picture of George that Dennis was going to use to illustrate his next book cover. As Dennis explains on his blog:

When Period was about to come out, I sent JT a jpeg of the cover. At that time, Sarah was due to come out in about six months. He begged me to use the cover photo— which is of the real George Miles taken by me in 1967— as his author photo.

He promised me that he was never going to have photos taken of him, do interviews or any public events because he was too painfully shy and reclusive. Because he was a good friend and because I thought his book would come out and have a quiet life like most books, I said he could.

Well, of course his book didn't have a quiet life and of course he did as many photo sessions, interviews, and events as he possibly could.

I told him it really bothered me that he was exploiting the image of George Miles— my greatest friend and muse— and I asked him to admit the photo wasn't him but he refused.

I went along with his lie for a long time because he was my friend even though it upset me and even though I was angry that he knew it upset me and he didn't care. Eventually I'd had enough and revealed the photo was of George. He was furious at me for blowing his cover, and that was basically the end of our friendship. That's the short version of the truth.

This photo of the ethereal and can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-him-sexy George Miles gave the immediate impression being the real deal. Like all of JT’s milieu at the time, I thought that snapshot was Natoma Street Wench hisself.

But when the big money came to call, and personal appearances were demanded, JT had to change the narrative. Laura hired accomplice Savannah Knoops, to play the Wig & Sunglasses role. A financial necessity, perhaps, but in terms of Laura's Slash arc, she killed off her Main Man— the ultimate Slash taboo.

If you’ve read Sarah, and The Heart is Deceitful, go unveil Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts and view the original source. Dennis is writing fiction, masterful fiction, which Leroy churned into an autobiographical persona and fan-imitation. It could only happen in a Slash picture show.

Obviously, most Slash writers are not sociopaths. They’re fans with wonderful imaginations and no pretense. If their fiction was out in the open, it would be a huge relief to reveal the scope of female sexual appetite.

Instead, it’s stifled, and for no good reason. Batman and Robin deserve the homosexual fantasy life they’ve inspired.

Why are straight women are the foundation of Slash? Their counterparts are the legions of men who dream of lesbian liaisons. These fans are not latent; they are not on their way to gender reassignment. They are as mainstream as any Kinsey 1 or 2.

Slash attractions dwell in the belly of sexual fantasy, which is infinitely vicarious, and enchanted with The Other— whoever that might be.

When you fantasize about something that doesn’t include YOU— that can’t include you— you can go all the way. Women don’t just get to have a hard cock in a slash fantasy; they get twice the hard cock— and every metaphor that implies.

Now, not every straight person has a queer fantasy life, or vice versa. But what we all have is a fantasy life that goes beyond what we know, that explicitly breaks boundary. Anyone who protests that their erotic fantasies are limited to strolls on the beach and movie-star kisses has obviously not had a little chat with their unconscious.

Slash fiction is an under-publicized revolution in female eroticism. It's no wonder that Laura's writings didn't get "spotted" as Slash; the genre isn't on bookstore shelves. The stereotype that women are incapable of entertaining nasty, brutal boy thoughts in their heads is just the kind of bunk you will find in women's magazines and chick-lit fiction, ad nauseum.

The Slash world knows better where spunk lies in women's hearts.

And Laura Albert knows better how to just plain... lie.  In her hands, Slash went a step further— past the subversion of TV & Comicbook Heroes and into the queer avant-garde. She opened a vein and mined a brand new orphan darling, a composite of a truly daring male duo.

Does the kid stay in the picture? The archetype will surely live forever. But Laura/Emily/Terminator, Inc. betrayed her own infatuation. She's not only a Slash Fraud, but a Slash Judas. If one more person finds the real Dennis and George through Sarah, though... maybe, just maybe, it was worth it.

All photos from http://denniscooper.net/

Comments

[AQ]

Now, -now- it's starting to make sense! Thank you very much, Susie. I could not get my head around this whole thing and now it's really starting to make sense thanks to your insight. It's "Occam's Razor" all over again, and this is perhaps what makes the answer most simple. Not an act of pure creation, but of Judas-like appropriation. Making that in the illegal shadows legal, saleable and desired.

I think someone must have already started their PhD thesis on all this. :-)

[Jess]

This is a really interesting reading of the work. While Leroy can't be equated with a slash writer, it does provide a new lens from which to understand the author, even the work. It's a thought-provoking comparison, at the very least.

I would like to quibble, however, with the idea that slash fiction is written only by heterosexual women. I'd say the balance between queer and heterosexual authors in slash writing is roughly equal, at least from my unscientific experience.

There's been quite a bit of academic work done on slash, AQ, including a piece on boyband slash in the book "Essays on the Culture and Literature of Desire." Actually, two grad students of my acquaintance wrote papers on slash fiction in recent months. Exciting stuff!

[Susie Bright]

I'm glad this gets you going, as it did me.

Believe me, I'm no purist about slash, and I know everyone and their grandfather is in on it now, in all varieties. But you can't understand the origins of slash w/o understanding the femme foundation of it. I wanted to emphasize that!

[AQ]

PS
In regards to talking about someone making a PhD thesis on "all this," I meant specifically the story and the impact of the JT Leroy phenomenon in particular. I know of the academic studies on slash in general and am amused at myself for not making connections sooner.

[DarthHelloKitty]

Now I understand why, as a slash reader and writer, I've been so fascinated with the unveiling of JT LeRoy!

You see, there is a very special kind of character that's sometimes written by a young slash writer, still on her training wheels. This is usually an original character, who becomes the star of the show. This character is beautiful (but in an unusual way), wise, kind, magical, creative - she may even have color-changing eyes or violet hair. She usually has a dramatic and traumatic past, but it has only made her stronger. She does marvelous things, saving the Starship Enterprise from blowing up, getting Methos to finally make a move on Duncan MacLeod. She is referred to, not terribly fondly, as Mary Sue.

JT LeRoy is a Mary Sue if I've ever seen one!

Slash has been a wonderful addition to my life. Think of it as an erotic-lit co-op - we all write for each other, encourage each other, and a major point of it is to get ourselves and each other off. What's not to like?

Incidentally - probably 90% of slash fans are women. However, a good number of us are queer women, just to confuse things a bit. You get together with a bunch of women telling each other erotic stories, and once in a while... stuff happens. Especially with the ones who are Susie Bright fans. :-)

[Josh Jasper]

Just an FYI, not all slash is gay these days. The origin of the word is, but it's since branched out.

[Dickon Edwards]

No mention of Brokeback Mountain? Original story written by a woman (Ms Proulx), about cowboy-on-cowboy action. Surely the biggest Slash success to date...!

I completely agree with you about channelling any energy generated by the LeRoy hoax palaver into celebrating the work of Mr Cooper. My reaction to reading umpteen blog comments on the story was to turn off the computer, walk into town and buy 'The Sluts'.

[Susie Bright]

Mary Sue! Mary Sue! I love that— thank you, DarthKitty.

[david Tiley]

Now that is a fine post, with a heap to chew on.

[Alana Noel Voth]

Good Morning, Susie:

Thanks for yet another astute post re: Emily Albert a.k.a. JT Leroy. I haven't read any Slash Fiction, nor am I aware that I've written any in the true definition of the genre, but I've certainly written gay erotica. As a result of your post, I'll look further into this Slash Fiction vs. woman writing gay erotica for my own information. I'm intriqued! I'll also read some Dennis Cooper and look forward to discovering yet another powerful literary voice.

Best,
Alana Noel Voth

[Ren Jender]

I wanted to say that I agree with every word that you've written about the appeal and origin of Leroy's work, but I also would like to address the appeal of the JT backstory--which I think was the reason for the books' and stories' success.

As someone who did a lot of work in human services in the nineties I noticed a lot of people I talked to, in my own family and at work were more willing to believe their own preconceptions about the homeless, people with HIV or people who lived in housing projects than believe their own experience or the my experience as I described it to them. My uncle, who thought Richard Nixon was the "best damn president we ever had," refused to believe anyone who lived in a housing project could be anything but a gun-toting drug dealer, no matter how much I told him about the people I knew who worked as nurses or at Polaroid (before it went bankrupt) or who raised the grandkids their children couldn't take care of. Short-term volunteers at the shelter often had a very starry-eyed view of the residents, a view that sometimes approached saintliness, which served neither those volunteers nor the shelter residents very well.

In the same way that Leroy's stories (along with Annie Proulx's) fulfill some women's fantasies about sex between men, I think good liberals want to believe a backstory like Leroy's because it fulfills the fantasy that someone who had survived a terrible life of abuse and deprivation could triumph by turning his experience into art that not only drew from his suffering but also turned out to be a lauded, well-paying career. Such "triumphs" can and have existed (Dorothy Allison is one) but they're rare, if not one-in-a-million, then one-in-very-many. A lot of people who come from these type of backgrounds don't triumph, continue to live in abusive relationships, don't read Sharon Olds, don't have good networking and self-promotion skills and lack the skills and mood-stability necessary to hold down a nine-to-five job, let alone create and revise several books' worth of writing.

Even if JT's stories didn't end happily his "life story" did (until the hoax was discovered, anyway) Its appeal is as responsible for his success as the writing is.

[Shanda]

It's not the first time I've heard of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu taken out of the text and given life in the real world. This is definitely the first time I ever heard of one publishing their own novels.

[Susan Mernit]

brilliant--thank you.

[Relby]

Re your comment on slash writers, that "Emily Albert fits the profile like an FBI binder":

LOVE. IT.

[Franzi Dickson]

As many slash fans will probably tell you, this reminds us all of a stunning individual who appeared on Fandom Wank. She assumed a variety of male personas and deluded quite a lot of fellow fans. I've seen a number of people drawing comparisons already.

Here is a page on this fascinating specimen of humanity:
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fwgreatesthits/1169.html?thread=51345

[honeybee]

Overheard once at a slash con:

Slash is written by het women, so it's het. But it's written about gay men. So it's gay male. But it's an erotic literature shared between women, so it's lesbian! And sometimes between lesbian women, so, double lesbian!

[Chris Kathman]

I am confused. Are you saying that JT Leroy is really a woman? I have read his book "Sarah," and was really impressed by it. In fact, I wrote to him after I read it, and received a response from him.

I think you'll remember me. A long time ago, I mixed an evening of erotic reading that you hosted at Slim's. I believe that I had some contact with you after that event.

I live in L.A. now, but I pass through San Francisco on occasion, in my travels with various bands.

I remain a big fan of your work -

- C.K.

[Gilda Elise]

Slash is not "an internet phenomenon that grew out of the sci fi fanzine communities." It's been around for thirty years, happily thriving in its own fanzines. They continue to thrive, the net part not the end-all or be-all of slash fandom.

[Solomon Grundy]

Very, very smart argument, SB.

One quibble: Most other people call her Laura Albert, not Emily. I think she had another pseudonym with Emily as the first name, but isn't Laura Albert her given name?

Oh, and is Brokeback really slash fiction? I thought slash had to be about preexisting characters.

But overall, this is one of those insightful arguments where you read it and are like, "of course, why didn't I see it before."

[jo]

(First, to Josh Jasper claiming slash has branched out to include het fic: No, it hasn't.)

It's not a very surprising story, to someone who's been around in slash fandom for a while.

Only in the small corner of fandom where I move, there has been several "fanbois", worshipped and doted upon and given the sort of BNF(big name fan) treatment others only get for exceptional accomplishments. The gay cyber-cock does the trick.
You could call it a variety of the Munchhaussen by internet syndrome... And there's been some very very credible scams.

Also well known slash writers have created second online male personas. It's even happened that two of these have fallen in love as gay men and fooled each other, right down to plans of moving in together, and subsequent fake suicides.

For seasoned slashers, any 'male' is by default suspicious ;) Especially one with a tragic and mysterious background.

The Victoria Bitter story mentioned above, and JT Leroy are of course on a whole different scale, but the motivation still seems very familiar.

About slash being an under-publicized revolution:

I hope it stays that way, because it really does not need to be interpreted and sensationalized and saddled with experts telling young slash-girls exactly what's going on with their sexuality.

No doubt, that will happen sooner or later, let's just hope it's later. Because this "revolution" needs to run its course before slash gets curbed and stunted and called undeserved names, in the grand tradition of Controling Female Sexuality.

[Kharessa Bloodrose]

The story of Emily Albert doesn't surprise me - I've encountered similar, if less public incidents of false identities in slash circles. Some of those people have caused harm while others are merely engaged in expressing a sort of metaphorical reality. Over the course of 2005, I encountered one of both varieties.

I, myself, am a slash writer, though I also hope to become a real author. My stories range from PG to NC-17, and I have a few of my own ideas on why women slash, though I certainly cannot presume to speak for everyone involved in fandom writing.

I think that slash makes it possible for some of us to write erotically or romantically without having to navigate the morass of male/female undercurrent. Instead of finding ourselves sucked into writing about The Female Experience or feminism or male/female relationship politics, we can tell a story or express an idea without the baggage.

Sometimes I think that by using masculine voices, some of us find it easier to explore those parts of ourselves that we characterize as masculine. I think this tends to be the case especially for women who have grown up in environments where men are still viewed as being stronger and more independent than women. I tend to do that - I use male characters to express conflicts that, to me, feel like explorations of "women's issues" when they are revolving around a female character. I usually prefer to write about people issues rather than women's issues, and using male characters allows me to dodge the bullet.

I also think that using male characters helps some of us to talk about difficult, painful issues that strike too close to home when we write male/female interaction. Stories of rape, trauma, and abuse of all kinds are prevalent in the world of fandom slash, most of them falling into the hurt/comfort mini genre. We don't sit around in conference talking about our own histories and hurts; we don't tell the readers whether we're writing from experience or using our subject matter as metaphors. Those stories are read, though, and they're discussed, and I think that often they provide a way to examine frightening or painful things from a safe distance.

[Susie Bright]

Solomon, I am grateful you pointed out that, in my haste, I got Little Miss Wonderful's pseudonyms mixed up.

I just went back to my post and corrected it all. Yes, her legal name is Laura Albert. Her pseuds include "Emily Frasier," "Jeremy," "Jeremiah," "JT," "JT Leroy," and "Terminator." — To name but a few that we know of so far!

Jo, Kharessa, thank you for your insider insights into slash, which I could never have provided, casual reader as I am. I just had a gut feeling about the whole enchilada!

And Ren, I too think this thing played into the geewhiz desire for a happy ending, at the expense of a more realistic assessment. Did you see the recent flyer put out by a group of young queer people (living a real JT life) in SF? It's in the comments area of my last post, and it slams hard.

[Robert Haaland]

Hey Susie,
Someone just recommended your blog to me this morning...

Over the last month I have become fascinated with slash and found your analysis interesting.

I have met you a couple of times and you came and spoke at the last Harvey Milk Democratic Club dinner last spring. (I was the one who gave Mark Leno the award amidst many expletives about the state of the world, the progressive community and lgbt politics.) I very much enjoyed your speech.

Anyway, as you may or may not remember, I'm a transgender FTM and have had an incredibly interesting experience in reading and even trying to write slash. I am not gay (although I have small and sometimes big crushes on other FTM guys) but love writing about same sex relations between men. I published one that was too awful for words but am loving exploring my masculinity through slash so your comments above resonated for me.

On another note, I have seen a couple of responses from the trans community about the whole subject and find it troubling. As you know, we are frequently accused of deceiving people about our gender. Brandon Teena, Gwen Araujo...

So this whole subject crosses some incredibly interesting ground.

I also remain a big fan of your writing. I loved you in the Virgin Machine and thanks for making sure the sex scenes in Bound were so hot.

[sfmike]

The Annie Proulx mention made me think of other proto-slash female writers using preexisting characters to write about gay male sex, among other things. In the trash category, there's the ineffable Mary Renault of "Persian Boy" fame and in the literary category there's Marguerite Yourcenar with her "Memoirs of Hadrian." And let's not forget the astonishing Anne Rice and her "Cry to Heaven," about Italian castrati having anal sex with everyone from popes to countesses.

I don't know why I'm loving the JT Leroy unmasking story so much, but your writing about it has been fascinating. All the best.

[Dasha]

But don't forget that a male Mary Sue is a Marty Stu! ;-)

[c]

I have read many comments here about how most yaoi slash writers are women, and I'd have to agree. In the slash world it is common for writers to falsely identify themselves as men, because it gives the sexual descriptions credibility. It is commonly acknowledged that many male writers in the slash world, have fictional penises, and it's not regarded as a pernicious lie. It is not regarded as a pernicious lie, because slash writers are seen as almost unimportant in the scheme of things. The ideas are not original, and even when the writing is excellent, slash carries a certain stigma of sub-literature. The result is that neither the writers nor the audience take themselves seriously.

Now, on to the sexual aspect of slash. To many slash is seen as the revelation of latent, explosive female sexuality. I would argue that though this might be true of some, is not true of all. Many slash writers also happen to be: asexual.

Slash affords asexual slash writers to indulge and investigate romantic attachment which live outside the sexual norm. Although for many asexuals heterosexual activity is seen as repellent, homosexual activity which is so far from any possible personal reality, is seen almost as the closest thing sex can get to asex. A woman cannot ever understand what it feels to have a penis, and that gives the double-penis thing a feeling of whimsy, where women have no place in the equation and are not seen as objects of desire.

It may appear almost insulting to a homosexual, for someone to consider their sexual activity as sex-free, but to an asexual this is actually an attractive aspect of it. For a woman who has never had sex, or has no desire to exist as a sexual entity, using a female character and putting her in a sexual situation hits way too close to home, in the "I'm glad I don't like peas, because then I'd have to eat them" sense.

By asexual slash writers if women are used in het slash, they are often the initiators of the sexual encounter, because for asexuals, 'oversexualized' women are the preferred Medium. Again, to free women from being the Objects of Desire and place them outside what is seen as the norm of sexual conduct, which appears so oppressive to asexuals.

I'm sorry if I sound rambling and incoherent, but English is not my first language and these are fairly new ideas for me which haven't been too digested yet. I'd love to hear what you have to say about asexuality as a vehicle for sexual liberation and alternate sexual lifestyles.

[Keri Glastonbury]

I've read Sarah, though being from Australia have been removed from the JT Leroy autobiographical phenomona. I already assumed he was of the vintage of Dennis Cooper / Gus Van Sant. Now it's so much more refreshing that the author is a woman in her 40s. I'm glad she's disrupted the essentialism of the alterna-cannon of queer male cultural producers. It's made everyone question their fetish.

[HH]

more about jt here.

http://alternativestovalium.blogspot.com/2006/01/unpublished-interview-with-enigma.html

[gloss]

Excellently spotted, the connection between old-school slash and JTL.

A quick note, though, about the state of slash - Some nouveau-slashers are queer as hell and doing this (slashing male *and* female characters) for queer reasons. It doesn't *have* to be about heterosexual women's fantasies, romanticizing two dicks. I promise.

[Oliver]

This is a great piece, and the Leroy/Albert thing's fascinated me (along with James Frey's, uh, "memoirs"). But aside from slash fiction, wasn't a lot of this also basically a very determined starfucker/celeb sycophant sort of ploy, trading upwards into the periphery of A-list celebs, with Thistle mysteriously opening for every JT Leroy reading? Albert probably has the motivations you ascribe -- the literary hots for guys getting it on -- but wasn't she also a pretty determined starfucker above an dbeyond all that?

[Jonathan]

Hi, just thought I'd pass this on, as it seemed relevant to Leroy/Albert's need to control situations, even now. I was emailed by a friend who says Amazon.com has been removing the most recent neg. reader reviews of Leroy's novel SARAH for some reason--as many as 18 in the past week--and leaving only the good ones. A quick check showed that a few people have re-posted their original reviews, along with grumbling about the apparent one-sided nature of the situation. The fact that Amazon would do this, however, is mystifying to me, and very troubling. Personally, I haven't yet posted a review of anything Leroy/Albert has written, although now I'm thinking I probably should. Is this unique? Or does Amazon.com do this often?

[bifemmefatale]

Can one really call a woman who spends her free time writing about guy-on-guy sex het? I used to agree with the Kinsey continuum model of sexuality, but now I think it's more like a nebulous, ever-changing Venn diagram.

Three of my favorite slash writers on LiveJournal are actually bi women, although they all write what they call OC (original character) slash, what most of us just call erotica or porn.

[Lori Higa]

Brilliantly written personal commentary on the JTL scandal/hoax. Thanks so much for the honest insights and for pointing me to Dennis Cooper's work. I was directed to your blog by reading Don Baird's column. Don printed your URL. I am overwhelmed by both of your amazing writing and truth telling. It helps those of us who experienced real childhood abuse, were mesmerized and tricked by the persona created by Ms. Albert. I thought I'd found a kindred soul in JT, someone I looked up to and admired, for his ability to transform incredible pain and trauma into triumphant, healing art. How sad for us, how heart-breaking, to learn that JTL has been revealed to be a fraud. Even though there is no hard evidence, everything that you and others have written leads me to believe that JTL is indeed the creation of a narcissistic, celebrity- and money-hungry phony. Hoaxes of this kind are despicable beyond words, for the pain they cause to those who looked to JTL as a role model, for the cynical destruction of hope for those with any chance of overcoming and surviving abuse of any kind.

Lori Higa

[Bryden]

Hi there Susie Bright -

Bryden MacDonald here.
I too was lured into the JT Leroy phenomena. I was enticed and became a believer. Believing. Hm. More on that in a moment.

For confusion sake on my part, I will refer to JT Leroy as "he" and "him".

I am a playwright from Canada currently living in Montreal. JT Leroy came to me in an interesting way. I was asked to be a part of a panel discussion on a television show here on our National Broadcaster called Open Book, hosted by the irreverent Mary Walsh. Firstly, I was glad for the gig, the money I was paid and the exposure. After all I am a playwright - we don't, as a rule, tend to generate much notice until after our deaths. If then. And I must say I have considered faking my own death on more than one occasion. I am also a queer playwright, and my work comes from, and goes right to the street. I am happy for my successes but am by no means a "main stream" writer. But, I have made my bed. And I love and care for my characters far too much to play the game any differently. That said, when I was sent this book, I was sent this book for a reason: I was to be the radical fag on the panel. Oh well. Someone has to do it.

I had never heard of JT Leroy. The book to be discussed was Sarah. I loved it. And I too was forgiving of it's "faults". This was a kid for fuck sake! A kid who survived the unthinkable. I knew too many dead kids, and I was ready for a fight.

I immediately e-mailed JT, introduced myself, and told him about the program. A sweet response followed. A penis bone arrived, crudely packaged in brown paper. I loved the little machine that seemed to be growing. I loved the shameless self-promotion. Well, a hustler, right? You go girl, I thought. I even sent him one of my books, hey why not, this was "one of ours" on the rise. And in my streets, we help each other. Hm, wonder where that book is now?

On the program, I defended the book to the hilt. I defended it for all the young whores and junkies. I defended it for the young, bright, LIVING trans-gendered punks. I defended it's sentimentality. I defended the existence of all the creatures in this book. I defended it for myself and the many young disenfranchised voices waiting in the wings. My compassion buttons too, were pushed to their limits. I was pleased with my "performance" and was eager to let JT know things had gone well, from my point of view anyway. Our correspondence continued, but by no means intensely and on a regular basis. But I was concerned. I wanted to know he was ok. He asked for a tape of the program. I got it and sent it. No response after that. The book was raked over the coals by one of the other panelists. His existence was questioned. It was by no means a full out love fest. But it was a lively conversation. JT was hurt I thought. I sent off a "don't worry about it" email. Nothing. In hindsight, I am guessing that he realized this program was not exactly Oprah (this is Canada remember). Not much to be gained I suppose. A few more "are you ok's" from me. A few more even shorter responses from he - some without the standard "Yers". The end.

In hindsight again, I must say that some of his responses sounded, well, different. Though always short and to the point. Something felt "off" sometimes. I ignored this. Ah, believing. I wanted to believe. Like in Santa Clause.

The unveiling of the "real" JT has left me remembering that feeling, those final years, nebulous grey zone: you know there is no Santa Clause but...will I still get the presents? One more year, that's it. It seems to me we are raised on lies, and obviously find some comfort in them. And children get abused. And we wait for Prince Charming. Concentric circles.

I am shocked. But not. If indeed what I am reading and hearing is "true". At any rate, I am disappointed for sure. I am certainly not ashamed to admit that I was taken. But there is something so cold and uncaring about all of this. Call me romantic, call me naive (I am proud of these traits, they allow me to continue to write from the heart) but, it hurts to think that those beautiful passages, and there are some startlingly beautiful passages that stay with me, could be created, written, from such a selfish place. A place that uses but at the same time disregards the lives that supposedly "inspire". I love a good hoax. I've always been a fan of fantastic bank heists. The Grifters is a favorite movie of mine. But to use the lives of people who, from the get-go, barely have a chance, who in the cruel world of the streets have the life expectancy of a goldfish, is unacceptable. Pathetic. And ultimately very very scary.

My experience, with this, what?, Frankenstein I suppose, was obviously not as painful as yours or certainly the beautiful Dennis Cooper's, and many more. But on one level, it's everyone's betrayal isn't it? And everyone in their own way will digest and interpret, suffer or gain. For awhile JT Leroy was the sweetest little pathological liar I never almost met. I will miss that. But fuck, that's show-biz isn't it. No one ever said it was gonna be up front or easy. But for me, personally, I will continue to try to live an honest life, keep it simple, and only trust the sweet liars who have the guts to lie to my face.

You Rock Susie Bright -
thanks for letting me share this with you.
All the best.

Sincerely,
Bryden MacDonald

[Susie Bright]

this is hilarious, and probably true:

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/asmussen/

[Mickey Disend]

Hello, Susie Bright;

I'm duly impressed by your comprehension of the JT Leray farce, as well as many other insights. For anybody who's been around similar blocks - like Times Square "back in the day" - there are enough 'tells' in the fantasies to read the Larkin Street liar's game from a great distance.
But what delights me *much* more is your worthy homage to Joyce Baronio's 42nd Street Studio! How kind of you to acknowledge this wonderful work! I know Joyce, and I lived for many years with the amazing woman who appears in the book on the page between the satanic-looking gentleman in the cloak and the hand-cuffed black girl. She was highly esteemed in the biz (left a Mafia boss for me) and I was the one to whom she returned home on West 45th Street. I was insanely, ridiculously, impossibly in love with her psychopathic self, and the two of us, and our cronies (yes, in the days before PORN got big and dull) ran continuously through the Manhattan night streets racking up exploits that would fill six novels. Because we both survived and moved on (many did not), I'll not mention her nomme de guerre, except to say that all I've seen or encountered in the San Francisco sex 'underworld'feels like a junior college version of same.
What a time that was, Susie! And I'm finally ready to write about it ...
Thank you for the nudge!!
Mickey Disend

what we

[booklynite]

Im going through the JT LeRoy stuff...I'm up to Jan 15 or so now...a lot more informative than the times, and I'd expect no less. Just a thought: isn't all porn writing basically slash, save that not everyone is into sci-fi and instead picks out that stud or babe they admire and put them to task at superhero sex? I've never gotten into JT LeRoy, but now that this thing has hit, it's really a great story. The agent, first of all, should have been responsible to make sure on the identity. When you send out your contracts as the BAE publisher, do you need personal info, like SS#? I hate to be a dullard, here, but someone else must have been a willing participant. Anyway, I'm reading on...

[booklynite]

This is in answer to Bryden,

I haven't read JT, but I read your post. As an artist/writer, the only real allegence you have is to your muse. As an adult, I'll agree, that it was certainly irresponsible, if not cynical to carry on the hoax. That lady is no model citizen, and might even have a day in court down the line, but if the connection was there, from her muse, through her, and to you, congrats, you've just completed an "art experience" which involves empathy, aesthetic appreciation, and all those things that distinquishes art from accounting. As for how good an artist she is, I think you hit the nail on the head in saying that you gave special leeway, because, heck, it was a kid writing those things. Maybe she should just donate all the proceeds she made to some shelter for kids...OK, I'm reading on...

[Susie Bright]

Joe, You're hardly dull! I like all these bookish questions myself.

I was, personally, more shocked about the duping of Leroy's agent than just about any of the other deceptions. Your agent is like your wife. They know all the dirt. They have to, really. I really appreciate Ira Silverberg's (the agent in question) straightforward admission of being snookered, once he was presented with the case. He could have been all "White-House-y" about it, trying to maintain deniablity, etc. But he actually emerged with a sense of humor. The day I talked to him, he said, with much mirth, that he "got a call from the attorney representing JT Leroy today, saying that JT would be calling me later today to terminate my services." Of course, his reply was, "WHO will be calling?"

Remember that Ira is Dennis Cooper's agent, who is the "real thing," literature-wise, and the unwitting muse of all JT's tripe. I"m sure Ira is very glad to be representing and supporting Dennis at a time like this.

As for BAE contracts, you're right, JT did have one with me. HA! But since I am typically paying out less than $600 in licensing rights to reprint one short story, it's not "reportable," IRS-wise, and I don't need anyone's SS# in that case. I would only need that if I paid more than $600 to an individual in one year.

Apparently, after a little while, Laura set up a JT Leroy corporation, with her mother as the head, so I imagine the recent contracts with that entity have some value. But anything Laura signed as JT, (or did Geoff do the funny signature?) is up for grabs now. The money trail has not been delved into by reporters up til now.

My suspicion was that JT was always acting so helpless and childish about money, that she had a tricky way of getting you to make out checks to other people, or send cash, or whatever. S/he was always hitting people up for money, in imaginative ways.

One interesting thing that came up in my email correspondance was hearing from deeply embarrassed writers who penned works FOR J.T., without any collaboration, and then let JT pick up the check.

Now if you're asking 'BUT WHY????" you have to understand that everyone in these situations was utterly convinced that JT was going to kill himself because "he" was so fragile and needy.

You'd do these extravagant things because you felt so scared for him, guilty, obligated, needy yourself, etc.

I felt guilty b/c I WOULDN"T write for him, or spend hours editing his stuff! He wanted me to, and I was like, 'wow, he really deserves the help, but I am struggling to support myself as it is."

I also was really bad at receiving the middle-of-the-phone-calls, because I just can't handle sleep deprivation. I as a "bad friend," you see. I can't stand talking to suicidal people who are high, at 3 AM. I had my fill at a young age, thank you very much.

I really do think Laura is both crazy, and a con artist, both. It sort of raises the whole psychology of grifters, but this devious multiple personality thing is quite a puzzle to me.

I know a few people who admit they are clinically id'ed multiple personalities, but they feel they have come to a peaceful place with it, but being truthful and making a safe place to express their different sides without hurting themselves or other people. Kinda like that guy in Beautiful Mind who finally accepts his "imaginary friends" as a part of his life he can accept/recognize for its own integrity.

But, Laura is clearly nowhere near this. She is like a spider caught in the stick of her own mendacity.

As for slash, it's not just any old porn. women writing gay sex between famous male icons is def. a speciality item! Read on...

[booklynite...or joe]

Calls in the middle of the night???? I-yi-yi. It sounds less like a cynical ploy and more like a bonifide personality disorder. Editing always scared me in the sense you really open the door to anyone! I had my brushes with insanity, too. This is just an impressive scale. So this Ira fellow had no clue? But surely they made more than $600 per year. Can you make an artistic contract with a corporation? I thought there was the question of authentic authorship which mandates a true identity.

Someone I know well, in one of his many marriages, was married to this woman who on the surface could be called a complusive liar. At one point, she falsely reported that she was raped by a black man in the park (and this was in the south where that could really stir up problems). Then a second time she reported the same thing. The judge was a woman, fortunately for this circumstance, and told her that if she reported another, she would be tried as a felon. So the woman went in for psychiatric treatment and was diagnosed with something called "insufficient personality disorder", or something like that, which basically means that you are so insecure that you are a boring person, you just make a bunch of shit up. Sounds like any fiction writer. But we might just be healthy enough to know what is fiction.
So then, as for any troubled kids who put their hopes on this character, I'd hope they realize then that she was probably kind of crazy, and to accept the JT stories as a gift from one troubled person to another...and that myself and many other people have grown up to live very happy lives after a not so great start...although, I don't want to imply that I was forced to turn tricks as a child. That person might really want professional help beyond participating in blogs. & there's nothing wrong with professional help, done it myself...but I digress...

I don't know, I don't really know any of the people involved. It's all conjecture to me. It brings up every issue imaginable about artistic integrity, the fragility of a soul, the extent to which an ego wants to be famous, fandom, personal identity. Very rich. & I read your other reader's comments re the boyfriend. OK, I won't buy his book.

[belledame222]

Would you say she's multiple, then? It's not that I wouldn't believe it's possible, it's just...I can just see her using that as yet another "glamorous" way to vault back into the limelight and rebuild sympathy. MPD sounds so much more exotic and interesting than garden-variety con-artistry, after all.

[Steve]

I've just been sitting on the side listening to all this, and still can't for the life of me understand why everyone is all atwitter.
Isn't all fiction just make believe? Who cares if there is a slash thing going on? I mean, could I sit down, and pretend to be a het woman writing gay sex scenes and attempting to be anonymous about it? How many slashes would that give me? Sheesh - it's kind of like the classic conundrum of my parent's generation - If I just act the way I think other people think I should act.....
I guess to me, I really don't care that much about that. I want a good story that keeps me glued to the book, and could give a damn about how JT Leroy presents her/slash/self.

[Kelli]

Laura Albert - do we choose anger, or pity? Should we pathologise her? Modern psychology tells us that if we can’t understand why someone is doing something, we must pathologize it, and lies have become pathos. There are three ways of diagnosing lying. If someone has a conscious motive and knows that they are lying, they are being manipulative. This diagnosis serves Albert well — by lying she was able to make an-unbelieveably-good-night-at-Vegas money, she was able to get published, she was able to lean in as close as she could to the glossy world of alternate-celebrity, by pushing these stories into the raw chest of our sympathies. The pathological liar suffering from facticious disorder (or pseudologia fantastica), found in many personality disorders, tells fiction as truth, and knows that they are lying but do not know why they are lying (unconscious motive). Unconscious motives are vast and varied and could be anything from lying because you are insecure of real or imagined abandonment, to convincing a town you have cancer to get pity for something bad that happened to you, or just down to bad potty training. People as damaged as Leroy claimed to be lie like rugs, they have no control until they understand why they are lying. Perhaps Albert is using JT as a metaphor for her own pain, plenty of middle-class people have crappy stuff happen to them too, and perhaps the construction of the physical Leroy by the way of Savannah helped to concrete this outlet for her. The other diagnosis is schitzophrenia, where the person has an unconscious motive for lying and does not know that they are lying, but I don't think Albert could be stuffed in this category because she knew she could not be Laura when she was on the phone as Leroy, and she was just so ...damn manipulative.

If we as a community pathologize Albert we are not letting her take full responsibility for her actions, for which she is damn well old enough too, we are blaming the 'illness'. Can we let her get away with that? If she is ill, self-knowledge is the only way she can stop this compulsion to lie (I don't think labotomies are given anymore, are they?), I just hope Kmart has enough notebooks for her to start Step 4, "I will take inventory of all the wrongs I have done to others."

If she is acting out erotic fantasies, and I know that questioning what gets other people off is... looked down upon, why fantasise about a mother burning off her little boy's penis? We get limited Dennis Cooper down here in Australia, and the worst I've found in his books is the necropheliac scenes, but that does not get enough pity to send a son to the best damn French Lycee school in the city, does it?

Sure, all writing is in some way fiction, as readers we consent to being lied to, but we live in a society that assumes that unless there is a big sign above a book saying "Fiction", we are telling the truth. Perhaps we believe that truth is still an act.

Thanks, Laura Albert, for ruining the integrity of the author. What have you and Frey done to memoir? For all those poor kids who want to write a memoir? The kids that were abused and could keep it a secret and have no proof other than their traumatic memory that keeps on repeating itself? You have ruined their ability to tell their story and have it believed, their healing process.

Laura Albert deserves a kick in the taco.

[Sarah Hay]

Hi Susie Bright. Well if it hadn't been for this whole JT affair i would not have stumbled across writers such as yourself and Dennis Cooper. :-) I'm a little late on hearing about the grand wigs'n'glasses unveiling so the reverberations are still with me, i'm still thinking about this and enjoying your blogspace while a conclusion hovers in the space somewhere around my head! That said i do have three words for you and Dennis Cooper and they are "All About Eve". What a fabulous movie.

Of course you and Dennis are cast as Bette Davis and, as we all now know, the slightly bedraggled, fragile fan with a hard luck tale who came a calling one day isn't Eve Harrington but Gertrude Slescynski. I'm not telling you this to be smart but because we watched the film last night and it put a smile upon my face as the films plot unravelled, perhaps it will you too.
I contribute to various so called 'style' magazines thus have friends who came into contact and in quite public ways with the toxic protagonists aka "JT" over the years. I think members of the media, the celebrity and music worlds (for the sake of argument, showbusiness) were all Bette Davis to Laura Albert's JT, how conceited of me to think that such pranks belonged to the Victorian era, that the internet was too much of an all seeing eye for such a complete hoodwinking to occur, that our language of style mag cool couldn't be infiltrated so thoroughly - our conceits were razed to the ground. BRAVO.
I find the Laura Albert story/psychology darkly fascinating specifically because this woman lived and breathed this business for years, day and night - that's a lot of continuous energy devoted to being someone else. Even drag artists get to take off their make-up at some point in the day. She's a sociopath non? Send in Louie Theroux, let's watch that doc - i wanna meet her but from the comfort of my sofa and with hundreds of miles seperating us!!! My friends have laughed off the caper, what else can they do?! For my own experience, my own feelings (i cannot speak for anyone else!) I'll quote Margot Channing from said movie - "Let's not fumble for excuses, not here and not with my hair down."

Anyway Ms Bright I am here to tell you and Dennis Cooper what you undoubtedly already know: Bette Davis was incredible in "All About Eve" xx

[Susie Bright]

Kelli, Sarah, thanks for your posts... I'm glad this discussion is still going. I just got a press review copy of the Asia Argento movie, "the Heart is Deceitful Above All things," so I'm afraid I won't be able to resist another peek into the lunatic asylum.

Kelli, you raise a lot of the same psychological and legal conflicts I've been thinking about too. I think it's possible to find someone mentally ill and also culpable, accountable. You want them to do something about their illness if they have any awareness of it at all.

I'm a big fan of All About Eve, too, although you give me way too much credit by comparison! Did you see the Bette Davis biography that's excerpted in this month's Vanity Fair? Lots of interesting muck!

[Kate]

I am in two minds, no three minds, no four ... wait.

I don't know what to think of this whole mess. I'm well aware that JT is a "fictional" character, but I also wonder what kind of mind must have invented (or concocted) such a fantabulous scam! It's brilliant in its devious, manipulative, heart-string-pulling treachery, but at the same time I feel such a sense of complete pity for the poor soul who felt the need to hide behind such a ruse for so long. What on earth could such a person be thinking to have to orchestrate such a sham for this lengt of time? THE FEAR! (as Hunter.S.Thompson would have screamed whilst swigging copious amounts of scotch I'm sure)

To invent something this complex is certainly an exercise in extreme mental breakdown - but wow - what a breakdown. THE FEAR certainly plays a HUGE part in this story.

I in no way condone what has gone on here, I disagree totally with a person making rubes of those that offer their hearts and hands to help out an artist but hell ... what is this all saying?

I think we need to dig deep people and really think about where we are coming from emotionally. Our hearts are hurt, but hell, imagine the mind that felt the need to concoct this charade now ...

I love the books. Great lit. Adore the stuff. I certainly won't let the information that a 40 year old (questionably) unsatble chick wrote them hinder my reading experience.

What I would like to ask is - why did this person feel such an undying need to carry on such a soul-sucking, superfluous and ultimately endearing pseudo-persona to get her own thoughts out there? What the hell was she so scared of?

Isn't the moral here to have courage in your own work? Shouldn't this sort of ruse serve as a lesson to all of us that we just bite the bullet and get our shit out there? Hell, I'm sure there's ten writers reading right now who write better than "JT Leroy" - get your shit out there.

We want to read it.

Still don't know how to feel but I know what I like and I like your honesty Susie. I like your guts and I like your ability to lay yourself bare in this a very tender situation.

Thank you for sharing.

[white hotel]

lovely susie. always so sane and spot on.

i prefer to think of laura albert as an ellen jamesian, personally.

[sebastian joykill]

Thank you for sharing this with us. I'm still at odds with all of this and can't believe 'this' artistic community of frauds behaved almost like our President's personal writing circle. Ashamed for this...when there are millions of J.T.s out there without the glitteratti, or the money to help them. I certianly hope J.T. and all his famous friend donate all proceeds made on the fraud to helping children of abuse and Aids victims everywhere...that might redeem them some.