by Megan Burbank
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It's been called the greatest literary hoax of all time, but it wasn’t a hoax. It was a con. When Laura Albert, a thirtysomething San Francisco writer, adopted the identity of JT LeRoy, a young, queer, HIV-positive character from one of her books, she built a cult around a fictional person—taking phone calls as LeRoy, enlisting her partner’s half-sister to play him in public, and having “his” stories optioned by Gus Van Sant. The Loch Ness monster is a hoax. Parlaying a false identity into movie deals and face time with your favorite celebrities is a con.
But you won’t hear that word in Author: The JT LeRoy Story, a new documentary about Albert.