Pipe Dreams

American lit has come a long way since the glory days of Steinbeck and J.D. Salinger. And wasn't it a long way down?

The adolescent sensation J.T. LeRoy, whose stories garnered so much west-coast celebrity adulation and so many one-star reviews on Amazon.com, turns out to have been an unperson -- a hoax. The entire sad and dissolute tale is available for your perusal at Salon.com (note: the site pass is easy; just watch a commercial and you can read the whole thing).

Without having actually plumbed the transexual and drug-addled depths of this counterfit oeuvre, my impression is that it reflects the decadence and world-weariness of the San Franicisco, New York, and Los Angeles urban scenes, and shows once again, as if we needed another demonstration, that sophistication without purpose is a dead end.

I'll have more later. I could have picked up a copy of "Sarah" or "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" this evening, but I didn't want to pay fourteen bucks for a slim paperback that's soon to be consigned to the museum of fake Rolexes and wooden nickels. I'll hit the used book stores tomorrow. I'm really curious to evaluate a ruse which fooled a lot of people who should have known better.