Everyone seems to be all up in arms about the fact that James Frey’s book A Million Little Pieces is an embellished tale. And I have to ask myself – why do I care? The book is still entertaining enough. You can’t really go wrong with that much vomit and crack smoking. I guess the big fuss is because Oprah had him on the show. Whopee.
The story that I find far more intriguing than James Frey is the story of JT Leroy. If you have ever read any JT Leroy novels – such as Sarah or The Heart is Decietful Above All Things – then you know that they are pretty disturbing account of a young JT that is sold by his mother to her truckstop boyfriends who sodomise him. This is the basic overall theme that leads to the point where JT decides that he is really a she and begins cross-dressing and being even more fucked up.
JT Leroy is reported to have a lot of celebrity friends – including Courtney Love (well, she would be so high that she wouldn’t notice anything), Winona Ryder and Gus Van Sant (with whom JT co-produced Elephant and we all know how much I loved that movie). There was always press about JT featuring photos of some creepy guy in a blond wig (such as the one pictured above).
And it all turns out to be false. JT Leroy is really a 40 year old middle class woman. And the guy in the wig? Actually her sister in law.
And to me, that makes all the entire story so much better. The Milli Vanilli of the literary world that conned everyone for the past decade. Awesome.
New clues in the myster of JT Leroy – a nice to the point article detailing the scam
