The Notorious JT

From the late nineties onwards, the blistering prose of JT Leroy captivated many, many readers all across the world. Like a cross between Kathy Acker and Dennis Cooper,his fiction resonated, weaving high art from low places. In person,too, Leroy bewitched the literary establishment, a taciturn, androgynous and socially awkward figure in shades, wig and hat. The backstory was incredibly sad: of homelessness, abuse and sex work as a transgender teen.

Except, as we all know now, Jeremiah Terminator Leroy was in fact, two different women: writer Laura Albert from San Francisco, and public face Savannah Knoop, really the younger sister of her boyfriend. From 1999-2006, they fooled the world, until exposed by a NY journalist. It was almost like Cyrano De Bergerac as directed by Andy Warhol.

I find the JT story fascinating: it really does seem that you can fool people if you say something often, with enough conviction – It’s the reason cult leaders get their followers to go along with them, no matter how nefarious their plans.

Watching Justin Kelly’s brilliant film from 2018, starting Laura Dern as Albert and Kristen Stewart as Knoop (Knoop also co-wrote the screenplay) left me with so many questions. Why did Knoop go along with the ruse for so long? It couldn’t have just been about the money, surely? Was Albert really that manipulative? What did she think about the film? Apparently, she was furious when Knoop wrote her memoir. Hypocritical? Perhaps. But you can’t have one without the other: two halves of a whole in this story.

If, as Camus suggested, we can never really know another, maybe Leroy was merely the unpacking of this idea, of all the strands which woven together make up a whole person. S/he was as real as s/he needed to be.

As debates grow around the future uses of Artificial Intelligence, maybe Savannah, described by Albert as merely an “avarar” was a human cipher, a sort of blank canvas on which to project multiple stories and fantasies, the next step, or natural progession from celebrity worship. In the absence of a tangible god, Leroy seems to have fulfilled a need in her fans, seeking meaning in an almost blank persona.

In essence, Leroy was the sheet of paper to be written on, or scribbled and doodled on, until the truth was revealed. Then and only then could she be discarded and thrown into the wastepaper basket. “Fame, fame, fickle fame”, Morrissey once sang. “It can play hideous tricks on the brain”. Leroy was at once, everything and nothing. I dunno, I’ve been drinking too much coffee today.