When Opportunity Knocks

It's unlikely that Laura Albert planned the J.T. LeRoy hoax. In 1997 when she was in her early thirties, she got wind of a planned anthology of memoirs to be called "Close to the Bone," and sensing an opportunity wrote the story "Baby Doll," supposedly the recollections of a transgendered, abused, and drug-addicted teenager. She submitted it under the name "Terminator."

Albert's story was the only one in the collection that generated buzz -- a very significant buzz as it turned out, which led to more opportunities. Soon the young author's work began appearing in literary and alternative culture publications such as Spin, and his gathering notoriety necessitated Albert's creating a more substantial identity for him. He became J.T. LeRoy (the "J" for Jeremy, the "T" for Terminator), 18, painfully shy and only willing to communicate through e-mails.

By the time the novel "Sarah" came out the demands of publicity made it necessary for LeRoy to assume a flesh-and-blood form, so Albert's partner's half sister, Savannah Knoop, was recruited to play the part at parties and book events. Knoop was not particularly convincing, however, and people began to grow suspicious.

For a lifelong hustler like Laura Albert, the sequence of opportunities that gave rise to the LeRoy hoax presented themselves serially. She never sat down and planned to create a best-selling author angling for major-studio movie rights, but simply moved stepwise as doors opened and public, critical, and celebrity credulity widened.

Anyway, it's not my purpose here to pass judgment on Laura Albert, but only to evaluate the quality of her writing and diagnose the nature of the response to it. In this society, hustling is at least as honorable an occupation as doing public relations for Dow Chemical, or writing ad copy for The Gap, and I don't blame the former would-be rock diva, porn site reviewer, and phone sex operator for taking advantage of the first opportunity she ever had to strike the big vein.

The cover story began to unravel in 2005. In October of that year a New York Magazine article by Stephen Beachy contended that there was no such person as J.T. LeRoy and that Laura Albert was the real author. A January, 2006 New York Times offered evidence that LeRoy was played publicly by Savannah Knoop, and the following month Geoffrey Knoop confirmed for the Times that Albert, his partner of 16 years, was the real author.

Last month the true story of J.T. LeRoy broke open all over the internet, just prior to the Hollywood release of the movie of "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things." It will be fascinating to see what happens with the film now, but probably not as interesting as monitoring the reactions of Lou Reed, Courtney Love, Wynona Ryder, Peter Fonda, Carrie Fisher, and all the other celebrity sophisticates who became LeRoy devotees. Even more embarrassed, one would think, will be Publishers Weekly, the New York Times Book Review, Kirkus Reviews, Hubert Selby, Jr., Vanity Fair -- the list is long and the faces smeared with egg innumerable.

Tomorrow I'll limit myself strictly to a critical analysis of the work that has caused so many people so much trouble.