In 2005, JT Leroy died. Technically, of course, JT Leroy never existed. The transgender, HIV-positive, homeless child prostitute-turned-celeb author was the fabrication of two San Francisco women whose machinations were exposed by journalists in 2005. But during the nine years that Jonathan “Terminator” Leroy prevailed in the public sphere, he won the hearts and minds of the literati and glitterati alike.
In last year’s excellent “The Cult of JT Leroy,” director Marjorie Sturm explored the smoke and mirrors behind this story, approaching it as the biggest hoax this side of “War of the Worlds.” As a San Francisco local who’d worked with mentally ill homeless people, Sturm had begun the documentary as an earnest homage, but upon the revelation that forty-year-old San Francisco resident Laura Albert and her twentysomething sister-in-law Savannah Koop had posed as Leroy (the former woman wrote his books and spoke as him on the phone; the latter posed as him in person), Sturm whipped off her rose-colored glasses and gave voice to the many who felt betrayed and manipulated. Continue Reading →
