Letters to the Editor
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I admit I could have missed it . . .
. . . but who is the "he" you were talking to?
If the public face of "JT" was a woman and the writer of the stories was a woman, then with whom were you talking on the phone? The husband of the public face?
I confess that I'm not terribly compelled by the story of this, and probably glossed over the crucial attribution, if it was there. I guess I'm just interested enough to wonder who the "he" turned out to actually be.
Of course, what I don't know is if I will be interested enough to come back and see if anyone attempted to either enlighten or denigrate me for asking.
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I was conned by Ayelet Waldman
What is the point of this story? Who the hell is JT Leroy? Why the hell should I care?
Seems like a story by a tabloid navel-gazer for other tabloid navel-gazers. If you care a whit about this kind of drivel, you desperately need to get some life.
Doesn't Joan usually have Farhad write this sort of crap?
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prior knowledge
Wow. This story assumes a LOT of prior knowledge.
I know more about the Frey case than the JT Leroy one, so the closing paragraphs about moral prescription were pretty much the only ones I really understood.
Perhaps this story could be updates with some kind of factual editor's note at the beginning to help provide the missing context for readers like me and the others who have posted letters of confusion.
I know we could just Google JT Leroy, but really-- should we have to do a Web search for the context to understand this kind of story?
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I knew precisely nothing about JT Leroy whyen I began reading this ....
and knew even less when I was finished.
Editors: do not assume that all your readers are fully au fait with all the ephemera there is to know.
The standard rules of journalism apply, methinks: a par or two to background a story is always a good thing, unless you are deliberately setting out to exclude the non-cogniscenti.
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Not just me then
I had no clue as to who the Leroy person was or their background, nor do most people outside a extremely small circle it seems.
What is the matter with Salon's editors ? how did this article pass muster ?
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I'm not going to complain about how there are so many more important things for a news daily to cover
But I am going to post my general reaction to reading this whole article:
"Huh?"
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Who?
I missed something. He is a she, who pretended to be a he, who then wanted to be a she? Did someone think the person in the hat with the sun glasses was a he? And the he (who is a she) TRICKED celebrities into believing she was a he? And they all hung out together and listened to s/he on the phone for hours and basked in s/his neurosis for the selfless promotion of s/his well-being. Is that the gist!? And now we are going to ask self improving, deep moral questions provoking moral insights and discussion for public consideration and consumption? You silly wabbits.
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FYI
Here's a story from the San Francisco Chronicle online, today, that will fill you in enough to understand the Waldman article:
http://tinyurl.com/dnjsw
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Google is your friend
If anyone actually does care about the backstory on this JT LeRoy character, it's pretty entertaining, if you have nothing more pressing.
This is from a recent enough NYT not to be behind their paid firewall (registration is required -- or you could use bugmenot.com to get passcodes... not that I am in any way suggesting or endorsing any form of deceitful behavior on-line):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/09/books/09book.html
The Times story in turn references a more detailed, more complete first-person account that appeared in New York Magazine; that's here:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/features/14718/
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C'mon People
Just because you're entirely out of the cultural loop don't start blasting Salon for running an article on this. JT LeRoy has been an underground celebrity author for many years. The books have sold well, the first novel, "Sarah", was optioned by Gus Van Sant for a feature film, etc. Get your noses off the front pages and read what's in the other pages of the newspaper, or online. There have been countless newspaper and magazine articles on this writer prior to this expose. Nerve.com even has several short stories online. This is not that obscure if you at all keep up with literature. Some of the short stories are actually quite good, others stretch the limits of the imagination...
That said, the bigger issue is how so many people in the art and literary worlds allowed themselves to be duped. When I read my first story by JT, I thought, "Hmmm... this is interesting..." The more I read, the less real the whole persona seemed. I'm not meaning to sound smug, but honestly - the world JT created in "his" stories was one based on the way the intelligentsia on the two coasts like to view flyover America. It's a place brimming with dark secrets, and twisted obsessions. Having come originally from that part of the country, with an extended family that resembles a Faulkner novel, I could easily spot it for what it was. (The same could be said of another alternative darling, Harmony Korine.) Does anyone honestly think that truck stops in the deepest parts of the red states are prowled by "lot lizards" - pretty, underage boys who whore themselves out to horny truckers? I have quite a few truckers in my family, and though there's drug use and other crazy stuff that goes down in that world, juvenile hustlers would be a truly notable exception, not a rule as JT writes in his stories. That's just one point. The list goes on. For one of the situations in the stories, or even two, to be true would be believable, but for all the things this kid experiences in these stories it could only be fiction. The JT hoax says a lot more about the liberal cultural elite (sorry to have to use that expression) in America than it does about either the true author, or America as a whole. These stories fed a fantasy, as did the character of JT. It's the fantasy of those who were conned that needs to be examined, not the hoax. Literary hoaxes are as old as storytelling.