This whole thing hasn't been much of a surprise. I had a discussion with a friend about this years ago, when JT first appeared. Conscensus was "No way, not true." I think that many people thought that JT LeRoy was a pen name, but as others have pointed out the writing wasn't worth consideration so it didn't warrant pusuit. Turns out that it is quite a hilarious, if unintended, prank that vividly points out the contemporary obsession with authenticity over aesthetics. But, in the end aesthetics win.

As for the readers, it comes down to this: If you supported and admired JT LeRoy you either have to admit you are a dupe and a philistine, or stick by the work. That is why people are so angry about this. Since the work was shit, now that JT is gone all that is left is shit. That makes them angry. JT's supporters deserve all the discomfort that they feel. The rest of us are just left chuckling and maybe shaking our heads ever so slightly.

Fascinating story! I transitioned as a female-to-male transsexual in the Bay Area during the time in question and Jack Boulware definitely evokes the time and place. What I find most fascinating about this story is what it says about our culture, gender and age. “…Here's this middle-aged woman who's not getting anywhere as a writer. She reinvents herself as a girly boy and becomes a huge success. On whom does that reflect more poorly, her or all the rest of us?" Exactly!!! While my motivation had absolutely nothing to do with career success, I went from being perceived as a 40-year-old woman to being carded and refused alcohol because I looked like an under-21 boy. Suddenly, I’m being offered different jobs and more responsibility than ever before. Same education, job skills and dedication but now I’m a hot commodity instead of an over-the-hill reject. While on the one hand I deplore Albert’s deception, I deplore even more the insular, shallow and self-congratulatory world of mainstream publishing. It's a bit hard not to feel that some of those duped people got just what they deserved.

What's with the naysaying? I can't understand how anyone wouldn't be fascinated by the long, strange road Laura Albert traveled before ultimately creating JT LeRoy. Party poopers. The real interest now--for me, anyway--rests not in unmasking LeRoy, but in unmasking Albert.

I am especially fascinated by women who "join" subcultures, only to feel sidelined and thwarted by matters of gender, and then counter that friction by dressing androgynously. Flora Jan Belle, a flapper and writer in the 20s, might be one example, and semi-fictional "Mardou Fox" (from The Subterraneans) is most certainly another.

It's fitting, then, that Albert, empowered by a sexual transience and fluidity, would assemble an alter-ego--not a masculine one, but rather, an androgynous one--to gain literary acceptance. It's even more interesting that she would take on that alter-ego with such permanence and conviction. Historically, plenty of female writers have published under a masculine or nebulous pseudonym, so that the work itself might be accepted on its own terms. And, historically, plenty of writers have fabricated their own memoirs. Fine. But Albert/LeRoy is so different, and therefore so fascinating, because the work of fiction didn't stop when she pulled the pen from the paper. With every phone call, she was still fictionalizing, she was still writing.

I think Jack Boulware asserted that very nicely, and far less ham-handedly than I just did. It's a fine deconstruction, analytical without judgment, insightful without babble. And considering the silence Mr. Boulware must have met with during the article's research, it's a good piece of detective work, to boot. The connections Boulware drew, the implications he made, they all ring true to me. You've got Albert's need to create narratives, her need for contact and support and affirmation, and her willingness to get her narratives out there by any means, medium, and conduit necessary. Anyone who reads critically knows to ask of the material at its close, "So what?" And in this case, the "material" is the life--the real life lived by a semi-fictitious person--the life of LeRoy and its divergences and coincidences with its maker. That is to say, it's never a question of who, but instead, why. Boulware's snapshot, however grainy, seems valid and truthful. And it's a striking one.

Frankly, I find JT LeRoy more interesting, and more real, now that he's finally been uncovered, and better yet, revealed. So thanks, Mr Boulware, for this narrative about Laura Albert; it was a great read.

One of the reasons writers like Joyce and Maugham and James and Hemingway are so revered; still read many years after their death, is the authenticity they brought to their work. If you read Ulysses, you're back in Dublin; for Whom the Bell Tolls, and you're up in the Spanish Mountains; Maugham and you're in London or James and you visit Paris. While great fiction is not true, great fiction is rooted in truth - that's why it's great. Wolfe and Lawrence and Fitzerald and Joyce wrote from their own experiences - that's why Eugene Gant or Stephen Dedalus or Nick Carraway or Philip Carey are so real - and will live on forever, while fakers will soon be forgotten. Go back and read reviews for Sarah - when the novel first came out. While there is praise for the prose, the bulk of the reviews focus on Leroy and the question of his authenticity.

Here's this middle-aged woman who's not getting anywhere as a writer. She reinvents herself as a girly boy and becomes a huge success. On whom does that reflect more poorly, her or all the rest of us?

I'll take "the rest of us" for $500, Alex. I've never read "Leroy's" fiction, but it shows me yet again why I stick to genre fiction (mystery, romance, historical, fantasy) these days. Genre fiction is the last bastion of the story, as opposed to the idea of "authenticity" (whatever that is!). In literary fiction, the author's image has replaced the idea of fiction as telling a good story.

Meanwhile, none of the millions of people who devour Harry Potter's latest adventure give a rat's patootie that the books aren't the "authentic voice" of a teenage boy wizard but are instead a thumpin' good yarn spun by a fortysomething former teacher.

Albert's pulling the wool over a lot of eyes for a long time just goes to show several things: Persona is more important than storytelling. There are a lot of people who would rather wallow in the edgy "shock value" voyeuristic crap than read to see if the writing is actually any good. Hipsters are sheeple just as the rest of us. Finally, contemporary fiction is losing all of its ability to tell good stories.

Now I think I'll go re-read Harry Potter.