JT Leroy

Transnational - Bangkok/Dublin - response to the JT Leroy thing. Between me and friend, one Roisin Collins.

Brian: I think the response to the hoax is bullshit. The hoax shows up white middle class arty types obsession with 'beautiful and damned' figures - the hoax doesn't undermine the literary merit of the work, and literary merit does not have to be grounded in real experience, it is irrelevant that the experiences of a HIV-transgendered-sex-working novelist were 'faked'.

Roisin: The middle classes, as you say, quietly appreciate the spectacle of 'authentic' abuse, while getting to feel virtuous because the boy is now sucking up to starlets rather than sucking off truckers. Thus, having achieved a sort of quirky celebrity, the 'author' has been handsomely rewarded for his pains. There's also that whole naif thing, where everybody gets to feel superior and protective to the artist, because you believe that he's an ignorant child , till it turns out you've been played by the kid.

I found a quote from Armistead Maupin about JT Leroy to the effect that when you believe that he's a retired rentboy the writing is effective and moving but when you reread it knowing that the author's somebody else entirely, it's just kitsch. I can't believe this; Maupin writes fiction so you'd think he'd have the whole literature/biography thing straight in his head, and as to the whole question of its literary quality resting on its author's lifestyle. So, you have to conclude that not only are all these American publishers/literati/hangers on hypocrites, and intellectually vain, they are also thick. It's a pretty basic category confusion, it suggests that texts adhere to their contexts in a way that only a fool could believe, it's obssessively fixated on the whole Reality thing in a way that makes Baudrillard seem commendable. I'm getting carried away...