Added to Scrapbook '09.I've just finished this, and I feel like I have to much to say that I don't even know where to start. I guess the beginning should do it. So...
I first became familiar with the name "JT Leroy" through his articles in magazines like Spin and ID. And then, when I saw that he was credited for writing the screenplay for Gus Van Sant's
Elephant, I got curious. Of course, by the time I got curious, he had already published two books:
Sarah and
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. I'm not going to go into what they're about; you can check that out for yourselves. Anyway... I bought both of them and finished them both in a single day. You know how there are times when you go, "I can't even out it into words?" Well, JT can, which is why I admired his work and have followed up since...
Then, I found out
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things was being made into a movie, and guess what? ASIA ARGENTO was directing it, and starring in it as Jeremiah's mother, Sarah. Of course I was super-excited because I've had a crush on Asia forfuckingever. So I watched the film and loved that too. And I was listening to his band
Thistle and loving that as well at this point...
Later, it turned out that LT Leroy didn't exist. A woman named Laura Albert had written the books, and her sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop, had been posing in as a boy, as JT Leroy, which brings me to this book...
It's Savannah's story of what she went through as JT Leroy. I think it further proves that Laura Albert is a genius in more way than one: she's a great writer, and apparently she can do anything she puts her mind into. A lot of people were, of course, very angry when the truth came out, but that just made me admire her even more because it takes a lot of balls to get someone to help you fool the world (literally) and be able to succeed at it.
While Savannah Knoop is no writer, I thought the book was as truthful as she could be and very exciting to read. I loved reading about how she wanted to quit being JT many times, but she was also kind of becoming him that she couldn't stop. She would get so nervous about public appearances, about saying/doing something wrong, and when that mixed with her own low self-esteem, it came to the point where she would start crying or puking.
There were parts about her clothing lines and more personal stuff about herself, which I thought was rather unnecessary because, as always, all people (and myself) care about is JT.
Long story short, I liked it a lot and read it in a heartbeat.
Now I need to really get a hold of the only JT Leroy book that I haven't read yet.
