Girl Boy Girl

October 1, 2008
When is an HIV-positive, transgender, ex-truck-stop-prostitute turned pseudo-celebrity novelist none of the above? When the faux man of letters is JT Leroy, revealed to be erstwhile community-college coed Savannah Knoop, who masqueraded as her middle-aged sister-in-law Lauras nom de plume. At 18, Knoop started living in public as JT, a boy who became a girl, still pretending to be a boy. Secret thumbsucker and compulsive overeater Laura, who was JTs publicist, Speedie, created JT as a metaphor for her own painperhaps. Eventually, portraying JT became Savannahs exciting reprieve from real life. He had access to a world so beyond what I thought could be my own. The game ran for seven years, ending in a 2006 public revelation/scandal. The whole experience had been a contagious lie, quoth Savannah, that spread and obstructed what I wanted my life to be. What with snapshots and celebrity photos, her confessions a breezy, fast, oddly likable read for fans of bizarre deceit or, perhaps, just the bizarre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)