Film Courage: I think people maybe in my opinion were unfairly upset over...I mean how many
people have written in a nom de plume? You've talked about this and avatars
in this day and age of social media we all kind of have this alter ego and if
that's what you needed to express this story this sometimes I think that
comments in an article are more fascinating than the article
itself so it was a con aimed at the publishing industry
it was the writer taking control instead of letting the publishers take control
or advantage of the writer but if shyness was partly the reason for the
con can't she be forgiven? Laura Albert, Writer/Filmmaker/Author/Subject of JT Leroy Documentary: Well the thing is I don't like the word con like I
don't like the word hoax I never said I'm gonna burst onto the literary scene
I was in and out of institutions I was in a group home I was in foster care I
was a ward of the state this is all out there in the public record because I
went through a trial and it was all substantiated he went through everything
and it's all there and someone can do the research so you don't have to take
my word for it there are interviews with people who
were there in the group home with me who were my house parents doctors who were
my therapist in my social worker all of that and the getting published was the
least of it I never actually ever asked someone hey can you help me get a book
deal I never did that never happened the work was passed on and JT was offered a
book Dale offered an agent it never even occurred to me it really was like very
accidental but I wanted to do was go artist to artist with people I admired
and that all of this happened I couldn't do it any other way it was not possible
as a very young child I just associated and I told these stories in a male voice
and it was the way I self soothed and that was where I instead of maybe become
a psycho killer I became a storyteller and they just the need to interact with
other people where you know harvest Darger the painter with his Vivian girl
he kept his world internal he just would paint these portraits of these girls
that were like his Barbie doll portraits and it was enough for him to keep it for
himself mine needed interaction with the outside world mine needed someone to
tell them that it wasn't their fault but of course it couldn't be me because they
wouldn't tell that to me because I had so much shame I would never ever tell
anyone the little times that I did start to talk about what was going on I didn't
get that help that I wanted so all of this came out the way an oyster creates
a pearl out of suffering that creates his pearl that's valued so it wasn't a
con on the if people want to say it was this fantastic thing that I pulled over
that was not my intention and I think that after the reveal or my outing the
media didn't step back and say well why would somebody go to this extreme to do
all this nobody really looked and I think I
didn't help the situation because I dug in the trench like everyone who was
writing fake memoir and my work was always published as fiction it says
fiction all over it you know when the fake memoir people and I I don't care
about labels so I'm not judging them but what people would do they would say look
we're on to you we know the whole truth they would call a press conference and
they would say okay I'm not really a pigmy from Antarctica you got me I
apologize I'm sorry I'm going to rehab which is the American narrative right
I'm sorry I'm going to rehab and I didn't do that because for me if you
took him I would die so I dug in deeper against all logic because I couldn't
imagine it's the Tinkerbell thing how can you
it was fighting for my child for this beings life so I created kind of like a
severe Jean Valjean kind of limb as a Rob's situation of hunting and that
makes people mad so the media wasn't they were mad and they their language
perpetrate our hoax the jig is up come clean culprit it was very much a
criminal like robbed a bank sold crack to children kind of language that was
used and that created the echo chamber and so people who read works that
invited them to be very vulnerable and perhaps we stimulate their own trauma
which is what I was exploring in my work they were told that what opened them was
a joke or a hoax and that creates a trauma of itself and not only that is
they felt attached to this being that I've murdered
I've killed JT and it was a joke and they're being told that I'm laughing at
them and I've pulled something over oh but it was a great wonderful con that's
horrible that's horrible nobody wants to feel that so it took it had to take time
for the dust to settle and and then what's beautiful is the felt
authenticity of the work survived what I gave myself over to and what's available
there and people came back to it and said wait there's more to the story
which is what happened with Jeff
you