Recently I attended a book release event that I not only found very interesting but was actually invited to take part in as one of four people asked by the writer to read passages from his latest book, something he doesn’t ever do himself because he is painfully shy and seems to go to great lengths to maintain a certain anonymity by not creating a recognizable public persona. The writer is the young and extraordinarily gifted literary wunderkind JT Leroy and the book, his second is called The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, a collection of shorter works of his, mostly written before his first novel Sarah. The event took place at Books Inc. on Market St., former place of employment of Michelle Tea, kick ass writer who won the Lambda Literary Award For Lesbian Fiction for her novel Valencia, and only recently has relocated to Los Angeles to do glamorous readings with big stars like Ann Magnusson at super hip places like the courtyard of the Coral Sands Hotel, and I’m sure a world of other good things too. We’ll miss you Michelle but L.A. isn’t that far away and basically you will be a blast there. Michelle is the one who introduced me to the writings of JT Leroy in the first place. It was after his first book release event for Sarah (basically structured in the same way with other writers reading selections from the novel while JT remained conspicuously absent sending only an e-mail to be read to the assembled group beforehand) that I personally began receiving an occasional E-mail from JT. I was of course thrilled to hear from him and doubly thrilled to hear he was familiar with my column and what not. His e-mails were hilarious and animated and sweet and unpretentious, much like I figured an e-mail from a shy 21 year old with a background of drugs abuse, prostitution, and a much played upon in his work abusive and neglectful relationship with his mother. It’s kind of hard to tell where exactly the blurred lines between his real life experience and the bizarre alternate world of truck stop pimps selling the blessings of a little girl said to be a saint who is really a little boy where a type of onion-like vegetable when cooked produces a tear gas like effect and a raccoon penis bone signifies which pimp you are owned by. I asked JT a lot of questions about odd details in his first novel and he’d always have amusing anecdotes in explanation. I also started to hear around then the ever-rising voice of doubt and speculation as to who JT really is and if he even exists or is he a character merely invented by another more famous literary figure. After all, no one that I knew had ever met him in person once, and this included people who had interviewed him for publications, arranged events in his honor, etc.
I decided to invite him out to see a show with me one time but he was able to decline as he was embarking on a location hunt with Gus Van Sant who had recently agreed to put Sarah to film, something the director disclosed in a local interview, along with the fact that he and JT had been hanging out and collaborating. Eventually I asked JT what I should think about the varied reports and theories and speculations about his true identity. He responded saying, “Everything you read or hear is all true.” At that point I became a bit frustrated with the mystery. If JT were someone else that would mean all of our correspondences were elaborate tricks designed to fool me or keep me in the dark about his true identity. Just as I finished reading Sarah I became almost offended enough by the whole situation to kind of stop thinking about it, like I had been duped or had fallen prey to a manipulative gimmick. I stopped e-mailing JT.
When I first read a review of his new book I of course planned on picking up a copy but before I managed to get out and do so I got an E-mail from Silke Tudor, a local writer who was organizing JT’s latest book release event. The e-mail invited me to read aloud from the new book, along with Susie Bright, V. Vale of REsearch Magazine, and Lynn Breedlove, front-person from dyke rock outfit Tribe 8, writer and spoken word artist. I immediately agreed to do it and went out and got the book. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things is a far cry different than Sarah. Where Sarah only begins to scratch the surface of the darkness that one could assume to be the more autobiographical details of JT’s life (before the storyline goes almost sci-fi Dukes of Hazard action/adventure fantasy with gun slinging Asian trannies and daredevil stunt drivers) The Heart Is Deceitful plunges you deep into the darkness of abuse and degradation, told with a certain odd tenderness and lush abstract beauty that is harrowing and effective and powerful. It’s no light-hearted romp through ones childhood by any means, sometimes illustrating at times a picture perfect psychological and developmental response or defense mechanism employed by a victim of abuse yet in a non-figurative, brilliant and lyrical way. He yields such power and transport with a relatively economic number of words. This writing shows an effective and extremely compelling ability and sense that is shocking to think of coming from a writer under the age of 20, which he was when he wrote most of this book. He is now 21.
I can certainly see and understand the waves of adulation and praise and guidance and endorsements JT has experienced from so many other influential writers and artists like Dennis Cooper and Mary Gaitskill and Suzanne Vega and Gus VanSant and many more notables that I’ve seen referred to as JT Leroy’s Celebrity Support Group on his website somewhere. That website, http://www.jtleroy.com/ is a very interesting site to find out more information on the author and the unanimous praise he has received for his work. It also references a fair amount of interviews he has conducted with a few rock bands, musicians, directors and other writers for a variety of magazines and publications, most regularly NY Press.
After picking up the book I chose the piece I wanted to read and consulted with Silke by e-mail and she agreed it was a good choice and I asked her a bit about her own experience with JT, the main question being, of course, have you ever met him in person. She has not, but has spoken to him briefly on the phone some. Aside from that, they have communicated solely over the internet. It was through talking to Silke and reading the first half of the new book that I finally was able to let go of my suspicions regarding the mystery of JT Leroy’s identity. I finally was settled upon simply letting the work speak for itself and seeing the obvious bond Silke has developed with JT which she spoke of at the beginning of the reading. I’m confident that no one is putting anything over on anyone; it has more to do with an individuals need or want to maintain his personal privacy, to perhaps never become a “public figure.” I consider his past and the many ways it could have produced a fragile or guarded person, or a damaged sociopathic fuck up, or a serial killer for that matter. But what it did produce is a survivor, and one of the most gifted writers I’ve ever read. His work is beyond exciting. Now watch, it will come out that JT is really some middle-aged female probation officer at some Appalachian county juvenile detention facility or something. After all, when I recently proclaimed that the would be brother and sister duo rockers The White Stripes must be blood relatives, as they claim, because of the instinctual manner in which they play music together, it came out that they aren’t siblings at all but rather a couple who used to be married.
The night before the reading I wrote him an e-mail, telling him how nervous I was about reading his stuff to an assembled group, and what an honor it was to be asked and how I used to read aloud to a certain group of friends sometimes when we were all high and up all night. I’d read Flannery O’Connor short stories and my friends found it more riveting than say group sex or petty crime or any number of things drug use might lead a group of guys to do. I resolved to draw on that experience to ease my nervousness and sell some books.
JT responded almost immediately saying he enjoyed the letter and that reading Flannery O’Connor was like doing drugs and definitely better than sex anytime. He told me of his meeting with a famous actress who might be directing a film he wrote, that the script for Sarahwas complete—written by someone he collaborated with, and that he was honored that I was reading for him.
Like many writers say of JT Leroy’s work, “I was blown away.”
I was very and visibly nervous when I read, but I’m pretty sure I projected enough to be heard.
Lynn Breedlove closed the event with a lengthy animated and hilarious commentary on the book, the mystery of JT Leroy, and how she’d be pissed off if he wasn’t who he said, and some well-chosen passages. As I watched her grab that room by it’s literary nut sack and fully command the space with her riveting and tough candor I suddenly decided that Lynn Breedlove is my favorite homosexual on the planet, hands down. I can hardly wait for the arrival of her upcoming first book. She’ll be doing her own reading.