Sunday, June 24, 2007

Another literary hoax

An interesting observation. These hoaxes demonstate that in the commercial literary world, context is more important than content. A "brilliant novel" written by, say, an abused teenager ceases to be "brilliant" if the author is discovered to be a quiet member of the middle class with a happy childhood. Fiction isn't fiction: it's "fiction" with an important "true context of creation." What rubbish -- but tons of money exchange hands in the battle of content v. context.
clipped from www.nytimes.com

Jury Finds ‘JT LeRoy’ Was Fraud
Published: June 23, 2007

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.
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