Saturday, March 28, 2009

JT Leroy



I've been doing some research and reading an old interview with 'JT Leroy', the infamous he-she-fraudulent novelist.

Years back I guest edited a couple of issues (3 and 6 to be precise) of a web magazine called Into The Storm and the artist formerly known as JT wrote a story for me.

Bloody good it is too and you can still find it here.

(this photo by Ed Panar seems a fitting illustration)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Francesca,
Thanks for what you say about the stories. Novelist - novels - are fiction - as all the books are labeled. How is a novelist fraudulent? Jt LeRoy was a pseudonym, a way for me to explore issue I could not have otherwise.
Here is a posting written by someone else about the issue.
Take care,
Laura (Jt LeRoy)

Laura's previous works were published as fiction. It is because people
ignored that simple fact, perhaps too lazy to notice, that a whole
host of inappropriate and nasty comments have been rained on her. Yes,
it is true that she created a different persona, JT, as a back-story,
but to tell the truth that is hardly unique. Writers have done the
same for centuries. Let's remember that Samuel Clemens, p/k/a Mark
Twain, created a whole alternative history for himself. Not to be
outdone, Bob Dylan, whose real name escapes me now, actually has at
various times created seven different "histories" to comport with
various phases of his development. In France, Roman Gary, after
winning an award and being written off as incapable of writing in a
different genre, actually wrote and put a relative up as the author
(sound familiar), only to have that relative win the same prestigious
award. The difference is that the French celebrated their talented
author.