[New-Poetry] Drop that nom de plume

Sat Jun 23 10:47:11 EDT 2007

Why should you have guessed?

- Jim-Nothing-Like-Blunt-Questions-Cervantes

On 6/23/07, Halvard Johnson <halvard at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I should have guessed, but have learned since posting this NYT
> article, that Laura Albert was once (back when she was in her
> early 20s) a student of my wife's at the New School.
>
> Hal
>
> "Please stand clear of the closing doors."
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> halvard at earthlink.net
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
>
>
>
> On Jun 22, 2007, at 10:00 PM, Halvard Johnson wrote:
>
> > Drop that nom de plume before it takes on a life
> > of its own.
> >
> > NYT
> >
> > June 23, 2007
> >
> > Jury Finds Writer's Alias Was Fraud
> >
> > By ALAN FEUER
> > JT LeRoy, the authorial "other" whom the writer Laura Albert
> > employed as her alter ego and self-protective proxy in the world,
> > was found yesterday by a jury in Manhattan to be not just a
> > fictional creation, but a fraud.
> >
> > Ms. Albert, 41, was found by the jury in Federal District Court to
> > have strayed beyond the normal limits of pseudonymous invention, in
> > part by signing a movie contract using her nom de plume. After the
> > verdict was announced, she stood with friends in the courtroom,
> > saying she had somehow known hours before that the jury's decision
> > would not fall her way.
> >
> > "I knew it this morning," Ms. Albert said, wearing at her neck a
> > tiny typewriter pendant with a legend that read "Write Hard, Die
> > Free." "I already went through it."
> >
> > As part of its verdict in the civil case, the jury ordered Ms.
> > Albert to pay $116,500 to Antidote International Films, which, in
> > 2003, signed an option contract with JT LeRoy to make a feature
> > film of his novel "Sarah," a tale of filial love and prostitution
> > set among the "lot lizards" of a West Virginia truck stop.
> >
> > When Antidote learned last year that the book had, in fact, been
> > written by Ms. Albert, its president, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, sued for
> > fraud and breach of contract, saying he had been duped and was
> > seeking not only the option money back, but damages and lawyers'
> > fees as well.
> >
> > Long before this somewhat narrow legal matter reached the courts,
> > the broader story of JT LeRoy, with its agitprop allure and
> > celebrity aroma, played out on the larger and much more garish
> > canvas of the press. After "Sarah" thrust the writer into stardom
> > in 2000, JT LeRoy became the damaged darling of the art house set,
> > a street waif and supposed son of a truck stop prostitute who,
> > usually by way of telephone or e-mail (he was "famously
> > reclusive"), befriended the likes of Courtney Love and Winona Ryder
> > — at least until his startling existence as a fiction was revealed.
> >
> > All the while, of course, it was Ms. Albert, a mother and otherwise
> > obscure novelist from Brooklyn Heights, who was spinning gritty
> > fantasies of drug addiction and Appalachian misery for the rich and
> > famous names at the other end of the keyboard or the line. She gave
> > interviews in a twangy accent to Terry Gross on NPR and sometimes
> > paid her former boyfriend's half-sister to appear in disguise as JT
> > LeRoy in the rarefied air of literary readings or the international
> > film festival at Cannes.
> >
> > It was deceptions like these that Antidote's lawyers said
> > constituted her fraud. Yet even though the company's lawyers
> > assailed her in court as a trickster and wily master of self-
> > promotion, they — and their client, Mr. Levy-Hinte — admitted a
> > grudging admiration for her writing talents, and for her performance.
> >
> > They also evinced a quiet sympathy for Ms. Albert, for it was soon
> > apparent that the eight-day trial would include testimony about her
> > rather gruesome history — a litany of adolescent trauma that
> > included sexual abuse, institutionalization and 13 years of
> > telephone therapy in which she spoke to her psychiatrist in the
> > adopted persona of a teenage boy. That boy, whom she took to
> > calling Jeremy or Jeremiah, was a sort of early incarnation of the
> > full-blown alter ego that would eventually evolve into JT LeRoy.
> >
> > Among the various battles waged at the trial — art versus commerce,
> > truth versus fiction, reality versus the imagination — it was
> > perhaps the battle over JT LeRoy's purpose in the world that was
> > most in dispute. Before his identity (or, rather, nonidentity) was
> > revealed last year in a series of newspaper articles, the
> > production team at Antidote considered him that rare commodity in
> > today's biography-obsessed entertainment world: a gifted writer
> > with a titillating past that only enhanced the value of the work.
> > After the revelation, the company took the position that Ms. Albert
> > had used the JT LeRoy "brand" — the same that had attracted them —
> > as a celebrity magnet to draw attention to her books.
> >
> > Ms. Albert herself, in testimony from the stand, suggested that JT
> > LeRoy was far more than a pseudonym in the classic Mark Twain-
> > Samuel Clemens mold. She offered the idea that JT LeRoy was a sort
> > of "respirator" for her inner life: an imaginary, though necessary,
> > survival apparatus that permitted her to breathe.
> >
> > The $116,500 judgment against Ms. Albert covers the option contract
> > and damages to Antidote, but not legal fees, which have not yet
> > been determined. If she is ordered to pay those as well, the amount
> > could be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
> >
> > Mr. Levy-Hinte, Antidote's president, said in an interview
> > yesterday that the lawsuit was less about getting his money back
> > than about sticking up for fair dealing and telling the truth.
> >
> > "I'm kind of a person of principle," he said. "Not kind of — I am.
> > I wasn't willing to simply walk away and take a loss with no
> > apology or reasonable explanation."
> >
> > He said he would not seek to make a movie out of "Sarah" as he had
> > wished, calling the project "too sullied and emotionally charged,"
> > although he added, "Somebody could make a good movie out of it, if
> > they wanted." He went on to say that if Ms. Albert, who never made
> > a fortune from her literary works, could not afford to pay the
> > judgment, he might have to consider laying claim to the rights to
> > her past and future books.
> >
> > Perhaps surprisingly, he said he had respect for Ms. Albert, who
> > "pulled off something quite startling — all these intelligent
> > people were taken in."
> >
> > It was a blessing in disguise, he said. The alter ego was gone.
> >
> > "She's liberated, in a way. It's quite wonderful."
> >
> >
> > "I don't know what music is."
> >               --Ludvig van Beethoven
> >
> > Halvard Johnson
> > ================
> > halvard at earthlink.net
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
> > http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> > http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> > http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
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