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Early Addition
A note to anyone writing under a pseudonym: Don't let the pseudonym become larger than life. After deliberating for a couple hours, a jury came to a verdict in a film production company's lawsuit against Laura Albert, who wrote novels under the name JT Leroy. A tipster at the Federal Court just gave us the scoop:
Jury verdict in: Laura Albert and Underdogs Inc. are both liable for fraud and for breach of contract. Damages: $110,000 for economic damages, $6,500 for punitive.For a few years, Albert had forwarded the illusion that JT Leroy was an actual person by having her ex-boyfriend's sister pose as "JT Leroy," the troubled son of a prostitute whose hard life gave inspiration to "his" books. Antidote Films had claimed that because the contract was with JT Leroy, not Albert, and since JT Leroy never existed, the contract should be found void (thanks, Frankenstein) and Albert should return the $45,000 in rights money. Albert, whose mother testified about her psychological problems, gave riveting testimony about her own difficult childhood, how she didn't want to write under her own name and how she channeled the "JT Leroy" persona to write.
The NY Times described both sides' closing arguments: Antidote's lawyer said Albert's actions were “conscious, deliberate, knowing, cynical abuse of the system for financial gain" while Albert's lawyer argued that "JT Leroy" helped Albert survive.
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who? what?
The most shocking part of all in this whole charade? That their ruse actually matters to ANYONE.
Have you read those books? They're TERRIBLE! They read like they were written by a 15 year old girl ODing on Tori Amos and ecstasy.
"her ex-boyfriend's sister pose as JT Leroy, the troubled son of a prostitute"
uh, a sister is by definition female and can't be a son. unless you meant her sister's ex-boyfriend?
none of the rest makes much sense either to tell you the truth...
To comment @ 5:03:
That's not a mistake-it was a woman posing as a man at the appearances that "JT Leroy" made. Everyone was just so in love with the books and the character that they didnt question anything. I havent read the books but the back story on JT Leroy along with how strange "he" looked in publicity appereances suggested something odd. And Laura Albert's defense (it helped me survive) is just straight up pathetic IMO.
augusten burroughs is the next to be exposed.
Legalistic grammar quibble: the contract should be found void, which is to say that the contract never existed (which appears to be the case here--it's impossible to make a contract with someone who doesn't actually exist).
When a contract is voided, on the other hand, there is a valid contract that exists, albeit one with a fatal error in it.
It is a mistake if the reader can't understand what's going on. I can't even parse this story...
[i]"it's impossible to make a contract with someone who doesn't actually exist."[/i]
Exactly. There's nothing wrong with writing under a pseudonym, and that was never the problem in this case. The problem was that the value of the contract was increased by the backstory of the nonexistent "author's" fictitious life.
If Laura Albert had simply sold the movie rights and been upfront with the people she was contracting with that "J.T. Leroy" was a pseudonym, there would have been no problem (except that they'd probably never have purchased the rights then, which was the motivation for perpetuating the fraud). The value wasn't in the story itself, the story was only interesting because of the life and identity of the person who was believed to be its author. As it turned out, that life itself was fiction.