JT Leroy-hipster trash or wunderkind?

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I just can't make up my mind.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 20 December 2003 17:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

This is one of those cases where the hype scared me away. is he a boy? is he a girl? is he real? is he michael stipe's best friend? and yet people really like his stuff so i'm willing to give him/her a chance. If i see one of his books for cheap i will pick it up. anybody love one of his books?

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 20 December 2003 18:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I was convinced he was a Dennis Cooper hoax until a friend of mine met him. I guess he's real. My wife liked Sarah a lot; I didn't finish it.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Saturday, 20 December 2003 18:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sarah started out great, but all the magic realist stuff turned me off. (and I like magic realism!!!) I will be reading "The Heart Is deceitful..." over the holidays.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 20 December 2003 18:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

He's obv at least a hipster isn't he?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 21 December 2003 09:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

Also I get this "gloomy books for intense young people" feeling off what I've read about him, that's quite likely not his fault, obv.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 21 December 2003 09:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

i finally read sarah over the summer. BAH, HUMBUG. the cutesy magical realism aspect was terrible, althouth that wasn't the only thing that turned me off. i'm not quite sure how to phrase this, but i feel like he wrote the book with his audience (hip kids, hip celebrities) in mind and as a result there's an air of smugness and pandering about the whole thing.

― lauren (laurenp), Sunday, 21 December 2003 19:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

sarah is def. classic - had some sort of post-flanner o'connor appeal about it; white trash ambisexual child of truck stop prostitute elevated to jesus status by her/his johns. soyeah i love it. picked up the short stories and had not gotten around to it yet.

― griffin doome, Sunday, 21 December 2003 23:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

one year passes...

Couldn't finish Sarah either! Cutesy tripe.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 August 2005 15:12 (nineteen years ago) link

Sarah seemed heavily under the influence of Darcey Steinke (esp. Jesus Saves).

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 18 August 2005 21:09 (nineteen years ago) link

one month passes...

JT LeRoy's true identity revealed in New York magazine

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 10 October 2005 12:36 (nineteen years ago) link

I was convinced he was a Dennis Cooper hoax until a friend of mine met him. I guess he's real. My wife liked Sarah a lot; I didn't finish it.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 10 October 2005 17:48 (nineteen years ago) link

i guess he met "wig and sunglasses".

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 10 October 2005 18:21 (nineteen years ago) link

I got a free copy of that book, smelled the fakeosity oozing from every molecule of the paper, and pitched it in the trash. I guess that sounds funny coming from somebody who wants everything to be fiction, but by fiction I mean FICTION, not SMARMY-ASS LIES AND SELF PROMOTION. Sniff the diff? I guess it's always been that way, but the literary world --aboveground and under and every bigroundal protesteth too mucheth in between -- looks at this moment like such hellish dance of self promotion and muck-crawling and mouths filled with phony chocolate filth I just want to curl up in Sophocles' arms and say bah. But y'know, Sophocles probly thought everything in the literary world was purer when Homer walked the earth... my god, I'm babbling. Sorry, I ditched my entire social life a couple months ago and am turning into a happily mad hermit.

― annerzinger, Monday, 10 October 2005 21:00 (nineteen years ago) link

Embrace the madness, Ann. Someday you will sigh and pine for it.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 10 October 2005 21:29 (nineteen years ago) link

I think the hoax is funny. It's like the Milli Vanilli of outsider art.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 10 October 2005 21:40 (nineteen years ago) link

gypsy, I kiss you

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 10 October 2005 22:53 (nineteen years ago) link

i read about the hoax today from the NY times. pretty convincing - sort of more convincing than the portrayal of a teen middle-american drugged up prostitute in Jt's books. i was sort of sad to find out that it was all fake as i'd kind of liked JT and his whole heart-felt thing.
oh well, goes to show that america really is the most plastic fucked up place on the planet

― indie girl, Tuesday, 11 October 2005 14:44 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't see how you're reaching that conclusion.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 14:53 (nineteen years ago) link

yes she met wig and sunglasses

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 21:51 (nineteen years ago) link

where is the NYT article?

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 21:52 (nineteen years ago) link

three months pass...

Is this the Wanda Tinasky of the 00s?

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 22:51 (eighteen years ago) link

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