It's based on the supposed autobiography of JT Leroy, who doesn't exist. It was all faked by a girl named Laura Albert. It's one of the greatest literary hoaxes ever.
http://www.pw.org/content/film_production_company_sues_laura_albert%E2%80%94or_it_jt_leroy
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Think cynical thoughts.
Not really. Fans of the book where aware of it from the start and all you have to do is a quick Google search if are just now hearing of the book.
I figured something was up the very first time I read it. JT Leroy is supposed to be about. 29 or 30, Only a year or two older than me but some of the references to pop culture and cartoons mentioned in the book were a bit before the characters time. Yes he would have technically been alive but most of his clear childhood memories would have been of the very late 80s and early 90s.
I don't even see why it matters if it was "fake", the story is still amazing and relatable even if it wasnt necessarily hers. Its not like others haven't had childhoods like that!
And wasnt the book published as fiction anyway? Not an actual memoir/nf?
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How come beauty burns everything away so the rest of the world — even me — disappears?
who cares?
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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough good men to do nothing.
As governess noted, the books are not a hoax. They were published as fiction, and under a pen name. The literary societies were quite upset that Laura was vindicated because of this (anonymity is crucial to a lot of authors). The only real wrong doing/hoax on Laura Albert's part was when her and Savannah started signing the pen name regarding movie contracts for 'Sarah'. Personally i think people just felt cheated because they believed that this poor little boy was real and their hearts went out to him. Then when they discovered that his life never existed at all because they assumed these books were autobiographical, they got mad. The books were NEVER stated to be autobiographies, but because the pen name was the same as the character in the story... people just began assuming.
However, i don't really respect that Laura and Savannah continued to play this ruse by creating a real life JT Leroy to attend functions and screenings. In a way i can justify why they did it though. Jeremiah's stories touched a lot of people (the author herself obviously, plus her sister in law Savannah), and they wanted to keep his spirit alive and make him more real to the world.
At the time the film was released, few people did in fact realize JT was a fake. When the truth came out, some people claimed they didn't care (maybe they thought this made them sound postmodern or sophisticated), but the fact is Laura Albert's writing career is over, and the last JT Leroy book "Labour" was never published at all. So yes, it did matter that the story was a fraud. Albert pulled a brilliant hoax, but that's what is was, a hoax, and she did everything she could to make people think JT was an actual abused kid and not a mere pen name. ("The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" may have been technically fiction, but much of what what happened to the character was part of JT Leroy's back story).
Albert above all else seemed obsessed with become famous (she is thoroughly self-absorbed in her interviews), and she comes across as clueless as to why people are angry that she sought fame through creating a fake abused child and exploiting readers' compassion for him. She's no better than a 23 year old woman who was caught in Ontario a few years ago pretending to be dying of cancer and soliciting donations for herself.
This hoax did fool a lot of people, including Asia Argento. Still, it perplexes why people are so outraged that these horrible things DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN to anybody. And the author wasn't soliciting donations--it was probably the only way to get her work published in our "reality"-obsessed culture.
I prefer fiction to "reality". I'd rather read great American novel like "Moby Dick" or "Lolita" than a REAL story of some guy going around harpooning whales or 12-year-old girls. I haven't read this, but knowing it's fiction makes it MORE appealing for me. *beep* "reality" I say.
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Duh.
It says "FICTION" right on the spine of the book.
I’m surrounded by a cesspool of activity.