The fake author who fooled the publishing world is brought back to life in a diverting tale that treads familiar ground“Sometimes, a lie’s more truth than the truth,” drawls author JT Leroy, speaking down a crackling telephone line. This straightforward dramatisation of Savannah Knoop’s 2008 memoir Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy details the scandalous, six-year-long ruse created by Knoop (Kristen Stewart) and author Laura Albert (Laura Dern) in the early noughties. Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy wasn’t just Albert’s pseudonym; he was a full-blown literary persona with a salacious backstory of poverty and child abuse that made the teenager’s acclaimed semi-autobiographical novels appear more authentic.When Albert meets her boyfriend’s shy, androgynous sister Savannah, she sees an opportunity to realise the reclusive LeRoy (the hunched, shuffling Stewart is perfect casting) and turn him into a celebrity phenomenon. Albert styles herself as LeRoy’s mad British manager Speedie; magazine covers and multimillion dollar film adaptations follow. For those familiar with the story, this version of LeRoy’s rise and fall won’t offer new revelations. Still, Dern brings a hungry, manic energy to Albert, a sad and troubled woman who used LeRoy as a vehicle to process her own childhood trauma, while Stewart’s performance is typically interiorised and exacting. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-08-18 07:00:10 UTC ]
Claire Wilcox has won the PEN Ackerley Prize 2021 for her "vivid" memoir Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes (Bloomsbury). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-04 21:28:36 UTC ]
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In his memoir about being drafted into the Vietnam War, Jeff Danziger lays bare the futility and waste, as well as his own naiveté. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-08-03 20:35:22 UTC ]
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Gina Frangello had a suspicion there was a hunger to talk about women who break the rules. In advance of the release of Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism and Treason, she admits after some prodding, “I got more letters from women before this book came out than I ever received for... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-30 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia brings his memoir about his father, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, and mother, Mercedes Barcha, to the L.A. Times Book Club. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-07-29 20:18:15 UTC ]
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Buzzy new novels from Alexandra Kleeman, Leila Slimani and Stephen King, Billie Jean King’s memoir and plenty more. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-07-28 17:14:59 UTC ]
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With the help of a brilliant co-writer, a fully rounded picture may now emerge of the much-maligned royalNot since criminals were barred from profiting in this way can a publisher’s announcement of a memoir have united the British press in such disgust. Before that, even the gangster turned... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-07-25 07:00:45 UTC ]
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Emily St. John Mandel's 'Sea of Tranquility' goes to Knopf's Jenny Jackson, Prince Harry sold a currently untitled memoir to Random House, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-07-23 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Oscar-winner and all-around Renaissance woman Viola Davis is going to put her life story (so far) to paper. The actor will publish a memoir, Finding Me, with HarperOne. Davis will discuss her tumultuous childhood growing up in Rhode Island, including poverty and family strife, to her rise as a... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-07-22 15:04:57 UTC ]
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Last week, Guto Harri, an anchor on GB News, in the United Kingdom, addressed a pressing news story: the racist abuse that Black English players faced following the final of the European soccer championships, which England lost, and the broader debate around the players’ practice of taking a... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-20 12:38:46 UTC ]
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Penguin Random House said the book, tentatively coming in 2022, would be “an intimate and heartfelt memoir from one of the most fascinating and influential global figures of our time.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-07-19 20:26:00 UTC ]
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Weidenfeld & Nicolson has acquired Sins of My Father: A Daughter, a Cult, a Wild Unravelling, a "dazzling" literary memoir from Lily Dunn about her attempt to unravel the mysteries of her late father's life. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-18 21:27:23 UTC ]
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Graeme Macrae Burnet was picked out by the literary spotlight when his second novel, His Bloody Project, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016. Published by small indie Saraband, it tells of a brutal triple murder in the remote Scottish Highlands in 1869 via witness statements, a memoir... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-16 17:48:55 UTC ]
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Culture Adrian Aguilera (Mexican, b. 1981) and Betelhem Makonnen (Ethiopian American, b. 1972), untitled (a flag for John Lewis or a green screen placeholder for an America that is yet to be), 2020 (installation view). Printed standard flag fabric,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-07-15 19:45:53 UTC ]
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Chicago’s memoir, “The Flowering,” looks back at the uphill battle to make it in the art world as a woman. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-07-15 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In 'A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes,' filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia writes about losing both parents — and the one event his renowned father couldn't record: his own death. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-07-07 16:19:08 UTC ]
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Essay Photos by Mai Al-Nakib / Courtesy of the author Civilizations, empires, dynasties, and monarchies end, leaving behind ruins of their fabled splendor. Traces of achievements become more or less decipherable, contingent upon the mercy of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-07-07 12:48:10 UTC ]
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“Fox & I” is Catherine Raven’s memoir of her relationship with a bushy-tailed creature — no, not a dog. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-07-06 09:00:01 UTC ]
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Months before Andrea Constand’s memoir about the Cosby case and its aftermath was set to be published, a Pennsylvania Court overturned his conviction for assaulting her and released him. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-07-02 13:52:59 UTC ]
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On Tuesday, Donald Rumsfeld—who, as defense secretary under George W. Bush, was a driving force behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—died. Major outlets wheeled out pre-written obituaries. The AP’s, by Robert Burns, bordered on hagiography. Its headline initially declared Rumsfeld “a cunning... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-02 12:32:38 UTC ]
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The author was repeatedly told that no one wanted to read fun books with disabled heroes. Now she has won the £5,000 Waterstones children’s book prize for her debut, A Kind of SparkWhen Scottish author Elle McNicoll was first trying to enter the publishing world, she was repeatedly told that... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-07-01 05:01:05 UTC ]
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