JT LeRoy Sighted in Hollywood Hills!

England finally catches up to last October’s speculation about JT LeRoy’s existence as Laura Barton of the Guardian flies out to Los Angeles in search of the reclusive author. The snark falls in predictable patterns as Barton recaps the author’s public trajectory (“It is a reasonable assumption that there are now more celebrities devoted to JT LeRoy than there are to Scientology”), but eventually the story works its way around to bizarre interludes that read like they’ve fallen out of the pages of a Bruce Wagner novel. Hey, there’s another name to add to the growing list of potential LeRoy true identities…can’t be any wackier than Barton’s guess that it might be Carrie Fisher, at least some of the time.

By one of life’s little coincidences, right after I discovered the Guardian story, an email from LeRoy showed up in my inbox. (That’s right: I get email from JT LeRoy! Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!) Actually, this was more of a newsletter: Apparently, he’s going to Sundance, he’s written a song for his band that might be about all the recent mishegoss (“All around I see wreckage and watch them scavenge/All around I hold my ground and let waves scatter”), and some friends designed a nifty “I am the real JT LeRoy” T-shirt (right). So at least he seems to be riding the storm out in good cheer.

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