JT Leroy

Anyway, Terri Gross mentioned that there's some speculation that he's a hoax due to his lack of public appearances, etc.

So, start with Sarah and go from there.

JT Leroy is the real thing. Hence Cooper's name attached to his writing. He enjoys the credibility of hanging off the star of a real writer.

Remember, just because you know alot of names, in London no one is really your friend.

JT Leroy is no joke perpetrated by anyone, he's BRILLIANT. And does make the occasional appearance. The only thing about the whole phenomenon that sucks is Ms C Love is angling to play the mum in the film of Sarah.

I work in London. My life is not in London. Spending time with third rate hacks is not my way of a good time. Spending with the hacks that promote the hacks. Arrgh. I don't complain, though. I just do.

JT Leroy is the real thing. It pissed me off to see that celebrity seeker Dennis Cooper attached, or try to, attach his name to everything that Leroy does. He has not earned the right. Gus Van Sant has. The only thing Cooper has earned the right to attach himself to is the mediocrelectricity of London types. Anyways, isnt Cooper old hat?

As far as Courtney Love playing his mother. .well what else is she good for if its not portaying whores and junkie pornographer's wives? *rimshot*

And I reiterate, you really don't live in my London. Name is not on door, not coming in.

I must register my complete disgust at the greying cancers of trendiness; destroying talent with their pissing greyness on all that is real.

Great art is completed in isolation of all of that fake crap! Look at the fantastic authors that are not connected by way of cellphone to all of that garbage.

I must register my disgust at it entering into the writing of JT Leroy. Expect the writing to be come drab and grey and expect the applause from all that is grey coming out of a cellphone to be loud and excited. It's all a lie, people. Trust your instincts that the grey cancers!

Reece Pancake once said that all great writing *is* based on morality.

I had no more need of God than He had of me, and if there were one, I often said to myself, I would meet Him calmly and spit in His face.

And with that, I spent in the face of grey cancers ruining great work.

Rumbling your shite Lowest Common Denominator workplace is not namedropping, it's KNOWLEDGE. Which I wanted to share with everyone who may not have realised. And you need the attentions of a good sub-editor more than I would have done at the age of 12, so it's hardly surprising you've found a home with Little Red Wapping Wench.

Alas no, collaborative novels don't really work. But that doesn't excuse your Doomie Mk One ¡Kill The Trendies! rant. It just sounds like once someone wearing black clothes said No Job For Mikey and now the rest of the world has to pay for your stupid prejudice for ever after because of it.

And originality in isolation is just a bad, over-Romantic idealisation of the creative. People who are not terribly creative or original do that one all the time.

Can you explain Harper Lee then?

If you do not like celebrity culture, go off and live on a farm in Texas. Yes, lig culture is irritating, but screeching about it, complaining and banging on like you are the first person that has ever noticed it is even more irritating than those you decry. Those who complain the loudest are almost invariably failed liggers who are jealous because they themselves have failed to attach themselves to a star. Congratulations on being lower than a bottom feeder.

You observe it, you are horrified, and then you either LEAVE or else you learn to cope and live and work around it, recognising your true friends and like minds wherever you find them.

Complaining is not the solution to the problem, it is PART of the problem.

Not many people do know. I have an astounding amount of people who do call me and discuss personal issues of distracting taste. People whom I have known for a fortnight. You see, I'm that good. Or else I would not have gotten as far as I have.

But you still have not offered an explanation of Harper Lee?

It would be interesting how you fit her beautiful writings into your world view.

I have no need to grovel nor complain as I do make very good money and I do enjoy my job. Very few people can claim that. I am where I want to be in my life.

However if you think NoTW = going far you have made a category error.

Cooper's writing struck me as being only a dustjacket and shelfspace at Borders' away from child pornography. I'm aware this is a slippery slope and I could end up sounding like a Chrisitan ranting against Harry Potter. Everyone has different standards for what makes something obscene. Personally, I find Cooper obscene and do not think he has any amount of talent with which to redeem his work.

His statement that he writes what he writes to avoid *doing* it and being it doesn't cut it with me. There are alt.sex groups where he could post his crap. Perhaps its the publishers and literary community that have welcomed him with whom I should hold a beef.

'Do not overestimate great man lest you underestimate yourself'

I'd rather read News of the World than I-D though, heh, no offence Suzy but the tits are too "arty" for me and I miss out on top new Jordan news.

Works both ways.

yeah im surprised to say it but im kind of coming down on that psycho's side on this one

(xp)

er no wait Rob is the dead one

well that is the real shame here.

I must have missed that nabisco, sorry. either way though seriously why would anybody want to go see this as a film, it sounds like some requiem for a dream level shit (which I did go see. and also pollock. I was dumb)

Requiem for a Dream ugh

And she lost the case.

Hmmmm...what if I'd been on that jury?

omg can't believe jt leroy is guilty of fraud. what is this world coming to.

nasdijj > leroy in all ways, he doesn't apologize or try to justify, he just spits incoherent venom at his enemies

That's a great article.

suzy is hilarious on this thread

In Australia in recent years we've had Helen Demidenko:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Darville

...and, much earlier, the celebrated fictitious poet Erm Malley:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley

There is a Wiki subcategory on the subject with links to these and various other hoaxes (including a personal favourite, Lobsang Rampa):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Literary_hoaxes

*Ern Malley

"Requiem For A Dream" was great!

adam OTM

JT Leroy is no joke perpetrated by anyone, he's BRILLIANT. And does make the occasional appearance. The only thing about the whole phenomenon that sucks is Ms C Love is angling to play the mum in the film of Sarah.

-- suzy, Tuesday, 27 November 2001 01:00 (5 years ago) Link

lollololoolololol

u is a sucka

; )

Another Australian lit hoax I didn't know about is on that Wiki page - Wanda Koolmatrie, who turned out to be a male taxi driver rather than a female Indigenous member of the stolen generation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Koolmatrie

Interesting how so many of these hoaxes win literary awards, and the frequency with which they involve a white author purporting to provide an insider view of the life, culture and sturglle of a minority or oppressed group.

Oh, how they sturglle, those sturglling ones.

at least suzy didn't claim to be a personal friend.

Dude please, 2001? The book *had* just come out, I liked the writing, and yeah I have an old Cooper connection. BFD.

It could be a lot worse. One could be my former editor, who thought she was participating in phone conversations with JTL!

this type of hoax is enabled and perpetuated by the type of person who is "in the know"--the type of person who pretends to know something when they just know someone (or know someone who knows someone, etc.) who has told them that they know something

it's really not all that hard to fool people. people want to be fooled.

nasdijj > leroy in all ways, he doesn't apologize or try to justify, he just spits incoherent venom at his enemies

-- J0hn D., Saturday, June 23, 2007 11:31 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

dunno who he's talking about or why spitting incoherent venom is what i'm looking for in a writer.

being fooled isn't embarrassing but lording it all over those who aren't "in the know" pretty much is.

lol people still read books?

it's funny how this writer's fiction turned out to be fiction

lol people still pretend to be "in the know" on the internets?

so is there like a reverse-backlash "wow! she's just like Andy Kaufman!" cult yet

is JT Leroy the small cat?

I would love it if they introduced 'What is an Author' into evidence.

english public schools had a standard question in their exams about the authorship of shakespeare's plays along those lines before yer foucaults and barthes were even born.

everyone knows francis bacon wrote the plays

or was it marlowe

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1382/551965414_7897451a24_o.gif

this is my favorite thread

omg can't believe jt leroy is guilty of fraud. what is this world coming to.

― Wrinklepaws

it's funny how this writer's fiction turned out to be fiction

― Binjominia, Sunday, June 24, 2007 2:19 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a good thread

https://www.versobooks.com/events/1417-author-the-jt-leroy-story-with-an-introduction-by-juliet-jacques

she's just like Andy Kaufman!" cult yet

― marmotwolof, Sunday, 24 June 2007 18:30 (nine years ago)

I gather the woman behind the whole thing has made a new documentary claiming just that about herself, at least by implication. Also that she recorded everyone's calls without their permission. Figure she's about to be in for a new world of legal hurt.

My girlfriend Kate and I just watched the other documentary that came out a year ago, The Cult of JT Leroy -- choppy at points but definitely a good portrait of a pretty fucked up situation. As much a portrayal of wanting to be part of the in crowd as anything else. As I said to Kate at one point, "Who was starfucking who here?" (Meantime the couple of telling clips from people who live and struggle through Leroy's supposed stomping grounds are telling in turn.)

The various posts at the start of the thread are definitely bemusing.

I only vaguely knew of this saga when it was happening/was revealed, but I really enjoyed her interview on WTF a week or so ago.

i LOVED this latest documentary. i don't really care how much laura albert says is true or not, i found the whole thing fascinating.

it was weird to me how identical her and savannah's voices/fake accents were. i wanted to know more about the relationship between them - how was laura conducting all these relationships over the phone, while savannah was maintaining them in person?? i had a general idea of the story before watching the doc, but no clue that the whole thing went on for like a decade - i was under the impression it had lasted maybe a year or so.

and all the recordings of conversations... THAT WAS FUCKING WEIRD. she recorded everything?? did the doc get permission from the people on the other end of the line to use those clips? i really wanted to here from more celebrities who were convinced j.t. was a real live person. i wanted to know what holes in the story people picked up on throughout those 10 years.

and laura's son! i wanted to know how he felt about all this.

i only watched like 30 mins of this and bailed, maybe will revisit sometime, but my impression was maybe some of the recorded converstions were genuine but some struck me that they seemed reconstructed for the doc idk i could be wrong

There was one taped convo where she was breaking up with her husband that I was a bit dubious about

i liked the doc but yeah i would have loved to hear more from savannah and the husband about their perspectives

maybe the recordings are part of the ongoing jt leroy mystique project
(that's what i was thinking when i wondered the same thing about them)

Yeah I started to wonder if they were just reenactments bit but they sounded real. So many questions.

did the doc get permission from the people on the other end of the line to use those clips?

Nope.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/movies/asia-argento-and-others-are-angry-about-being-in-jt-leroy-documentary.html