JT LeRoy review – a less surprising hoax the second time around

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 ]

Other news stories related to: "JT LeRoy review – a less surprising hoax the second time around"


Oprah's Interview with Obama Airs on Publication Day

Oprah Winfrey's interview with Barack Obama premieres on Apple TV+ on Tuesday morning, just as copies of the hotly anticipated former president's memoir lands on bookstore shelves around the world. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-16 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


PRH's Obama UK media campaign kicks off this weekend

With Barack Obama's memoir out from Viking on Tuesday (17th November), PRH's UK media campaign will kick off this weekend. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-13 00:35:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Christie Tate Wrote a Best Seller About Group Therapy. Fellow Members Approved.

She tried her hand at fiction, to no avail. So she wrote a memoir about a circle of strangers instead. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-11-12 10:00:04 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Has Donald Trump already landed a $100m book and TV deal?

While books about the outgoing US president have been bestsellers for the last four years, Trump might be a step too far for some publishersFact-checkers are quaking in their boots amid reports that Donald Trump could be being “courted for a new tome on his time in the White House”. The... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-11-11 14:24:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Review: Celia Paul is finally her own muse in the dazzling memoir 'Self-Portrait'

The painter known to many as Lucian Freud's one-time muse writes of her own muse, her mother, and provers herself a masterful writer as well. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-11-10 18:28:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Post-election, Kamala Harris’s books are more popular than ever.

Kamala Harris-related books have seen a sharp increase in popularity post-Biden/Harris presidential win. On Sunday, a whopping four books on Amazon’s Top 10 bestsellers list were either about or penned by the vice president-elect. The books in question: Harris’s memoir The Truths We Hold: An... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-10 17:37:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this


The inspiration for Maisie Dobbs? Jacqueline Winspear’s memoir offers charming clues

In “This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing,” Jacqueline Winspear recalls her upbringing in the British countryside. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-10 14:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


‘Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood,’ by Christa Parravani: An Excerpt

An excerpt from “Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood,” by Christa Parravani Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-11-10 10:01:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


This Medical Memoir Reads Like a Detective Story

A young woman’s diagnosis is only the beginning of the mystery in “Lightning Flowers.” As Katherine E. Standefer tried to make sense of her heart condition, her conscience sent her on a trip across the world. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-11-10 10:00:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Why I Went Into Debt to Buy Back the Rights for Two of My Books

Yesterday, I attended a virtual book club where Heavy: An American Memoir was being read. When I clicked the link to join the Zoom, I saw the faces, necks, and shoulders of seven beautiful pixelated Black women from as far west as Las Vegas and as far east as Long Island. I assumed from their... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-10 09:49:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers

The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire is a monthly interview featuring seven questions for five authors with new books. This month we talk to: * Danielle Evans (The Office of Historical Corrections)  Éireann Lorsung (The Century) Christa Parravani (Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-10 09:48:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Tinder Press wins Patterson's 'heartbreaking yet joyful' memoir

Tinder Press has won at auction Christina Patterson’s next book, Outside, the Sky is Blue: A Memoir of Faith, Hope and Loss. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-09 23:01:40 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Lit Hub Weekly: November 2 – 6, 2020

“The Babur Nama is an oddly modern text, almost Proustian in its self-awareness.” William Dalrymple on the 16th-century memoir far ahead of its time. | Lit Hub Biography “We have had no truth and reconciliation process.” On the renaissance of American white supremacy, a conversation with Isaac... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-07 12:30:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Megan Rapinoe Has a Lot More to Say

Don’t expect the usual bromides about hard work and resilience in “One Life.” The soccer star’s memoir gets into her political awakening as much as it does her sports career. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-11-06 10:00:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Bookshop.org is what the publishing world has been waiting for

Following its its success in the US, the ethical platform Bookshop.org has arrived in the UK, marking an exciting new chapter for independent stores onlineIn publishing we often talk about things that we are “excited” and “delighted” about, so much that sometimes I think the words have lost... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-11-05 08:00:40 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Comedian Norcott's 'smart' memoir to Monoray

Monoray, part of the Octopus Publishing Group, has acquired Where Did I Go Right?: How The Left Lost Me by comedian and writer Geoff Norcott.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 03:36:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Cape snaps up 'exquisite' memoir from Hewitt

Jonathan Cape has snapped up an “exquisite” memoir about the challenges facing gay men today from acclaimed poet and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year shortlistee Seán Hewitt. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-03 07:03:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Fred Klein, Who Helped Build Bantam Books, Dies at 97

Fred Klein, who helped make Bantam Books a major force in mass market paperback publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, died on October 22. He was described by a former colleague as "the greatest ringmaster the publishing world has ever known.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-02 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Manilla bags memoir from Children of God member

Bonnier Books UK’s new literary imprint Manilla Press has acquired a "powerful memoir" from debut author Bexy Cameron exploring her childhood in the notorious cult Children of God. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-02 00:29:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this


The Dark History of Eastern California: A Conversation with Kendra Atleework

FEW WRITERS MANAGE to capture the essence of the California that exists beyond the images typically offered up by film and television — palm trees, beaches, gridlock, Hollywood, Kardashians; images the rest of the country seems so willing to accept about us “out here.” Kendra Atleework’s new... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-01 18:00:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this