JT Leroy and the Dybbuk factor

April 18, 1976 to April 24, 1976

Curtain, Agatha Christie
This last of her books was the first Christie that I remember reading.

Cop Killer, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

Jack Benny: An intimate biography, Irving Fein
Author, Fein, was Benny’s manager and I remember this as being an affectionate book.


April 18 to April 24, 2006

Sarah, J. T. Leroy

As a literary hoax this was interesting. The motivation is crystal clear to any writer. I call it the Dybbuk factor after a Playhouse 90 production of S. Ansky's The Dybbuk that made a lasting impression on me when I was 12. The bride, at her wedding is possessed by the spirit of her dead fiance--who will not let her go, and speaks through her mouth. This production had her mouth move and the dead man's voice come out. I realize that this effect has been used many times probably before, and certainly since in horror films (notably The Exorcist) but in 1960 it sure knocked my socks off.

My point is that when someone's mouth moved, and an unexpected voice comes out, we are intrigued, riveted or captivated.

As a middle-aged woman novelist Laura Albert was a non-event—a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. Middle-aged women write novels all the time—and they’re hard to sell. The fact that Albert works or used to work in the phone sex industry and currently plays in a band would not make her novel of any particular interest—even if it happened to be about the phone sex industry and playing in a band. You’ve still got the older woman writing about young boy prostitutes—it’s not a plus, and I wonder if some in the publishing industry would even suggest keeping the author’s identity under wraps so as not to discourage buyers. In this case, the author figured that way before presenting the novel.

Now take the very same novel and present it as “thinly veiled autobiography” written by an underage, homeless, transgendered former boy prostitute. Now that’s a 12 on a scale of 1 to 10--the kind of sexy that sells. Albert went further than that in that she used her phone and email skills to court the kind of literary personalities who could and would make crucial introductions for the "self" she presented as a pathologically shy young man, apparently trying to raise himself out of the gutter through writing.

Crucial to any kind of a con is finding where the person being conned is vulnerable. In this case Albert tapped a humanitarian desire to help a traumatized young person in trouble, a curious itch to hear about child prostitution from the viewpoint of a survivor, and every writer’s belief in the redemptive power of writing.

I didn’t hear about this book till the hoax was exposed. This weekend I read it, and found it mild rather than wild. A PG17-rated Terry Southern or a Southern-fried Nathaniel West. I didn't find it funny enough to laugh--for some reason I also thought of Rita Mae Brown, who's a hundred times better writer, and who does make me laugh. Dunno why I thought of her--maybe the Southern flavor. Only the dialog, or the narrator's report of it, is explicit and burlap bag coarse. The sex scenes mostly occur off-stage. The background for the story may have some legitimacy—I have no idea. It seems surreal—the high flown gourmet food at the greasy spoon truck stop restaurant for example. I loved how New York Magazine writer, Stephen Beachy, in an article from October 2005 unraveling the hoax said, “I came away from reading Sarah knowing nothing about truck-stop prostitution in West Virginia or about West Virginia…” http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/features/14718/

I have mixed feelings about one outcome of the hoax. Some young people are inspired enough by J. T. Leroy, that they refuse to believe "he" is not real. The web page is still there, and the books are still selling.