'Other writers latched onto JT Leroy as career move'

I asked a writer acquaintance who also works for Last Gasp, JT Leroy's publisher, for a reaction to the protests by writers and editors who feel ripped off, either psychically or professionally, by the JT Leroy hoax. Without commenting on the question of whether Last Gasp's star author does or does not exist, he responded in part:

If people worked for free for someone else, shame on them. Every minute that I've worked for JT has been on the clock. (...)

Do you think people were really trying to show support to a troubled youth? Maybe 6 years ago, but up until the last October, they were hounding me to get to him. People latched on to him to try to forward their own careers. That's who's really upset.

"Last October" is when the article in New York by Stephen Beachy ran, exposing the Leroy hoax.

The reason I asked this guy at Last Gasp is that in November 2004 he invited me and several other writers to participate in one of those readings of Leroy's work -- a book launch in which the author does not show up so local literary figures take turns reading from the book. (Susie Bright described one such event.)

At the time I did not question the concept of an author not appearing at his own book launch and having others read in his stead; my only concern was that I had a prior engagement. My writing group was meeting that night, so I decided to say no. But to be honest, if I had been able to, I would have participated enthusiastically, partly because of the reason my contact cited: to forward my own career by appearing in a reading with other more famous people.

It certainly didn't occur to me to question whether or not the author actually existed -- why would it? If someone emails me and says "We're having a book release for JT LeRoy's Last Gasp book, Harold's End," I have to understand there's a person named JT LeRoy -- there's no other way of understanding the sentence. If someone asks me to come to a potluck birthday party, I can be pretty sure the word "potluck" means everyone is going to bring some food to share, not some nutty meaning you might find in a New Yorker cartoon showing two explorers standing in a cannibal's kettle with one saying to the other "When you said it was potluck I thought you meant...."

JT Leroy, Last Gasp, hoax