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[pip-personalispolitical]

Desperately Wicked: In Defence of Laura Albert

[Introduction]

JT LeRoy, the literary “IT” boy of the early noughties; a gender-fluid, gender non-conformist that existed (or exists) between the Southern Gothic and Never Never Land (Bennett: 2016). Riding off the wave of the 90’s punk-rock, D-I-Y sentimentality of celebrity that is arguably still present in 2018. Arguably more so with the surge of internet celebrity that started with MySpace and continues with the self/sponsored insta-fame of now. 

The D-I-Y aura surrounding the industries suited Jerimiah to the “T” in “terminator”. It allowed him to waver on enigmatic and shy, magnetic and offbeat, provocative yet child-like in his disposition and correspondence between celebrity, publisher and the public. For those that aren’t clued in, JT Leroy was dubbed the literary hoax of the 21st century. With three novels under his belt, “Sarah”, “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” and “Harold’s End,” a cult following, and a movie starring Asia Argentina, he was a young-20-something, gender outlaw of a writer. He pushed questions of gender presentation, gender performativity, gender passativity and sexuality; as Delaney suggests maybe he prefaced todays more gender-fluid society (2016). His image was that of an effeminate - if not androgynous - small statured blonde that held the same enigmatic and dark energy of his books...Albert’s books. In 2006 JT’s fictitious status was revealed by Stephen Beachy– Albert was the writer, the creator and in part JT himself (Bennet: 2016). JT was performed by aspiring clothes designer, Knoop, Albert’s sister-in-law. In part, his opposing yet complimentary characteristics were due to the influences surrounding him; firstly, by his given traits, his creator and mother, Laura Albert, and then by his living and breathing host, Savannah Knoop. These factors culminated an emotionally devastated, shy, socially stunted wonder-boy; the kind that Albert knew would be adored, protected, and above all - believed. The thing is, it’s not like she didn’t try to tell us, to try and break the façade; she outwardly joked she was JT LeRoy – only to be met with mockery and dismissal - which I know would have been different if she were a man...if she looked like JT. She wrote it quote plainly with the quote “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” and spoke candidly about the idea of treachery and betrayal, she wrote her own demise; as the Lot Lizards chased JT with pitchforks, celebrity America hunted Albert with hunger and the sting of betrayal in their eyes: she had made them look dumb. Like Langer, who wrote an article on JT in 2013, I (as a reader and fan) divided between my empathy with the characters and all that Albert achieved; both in the literary and literal sense, in JT’s public reception and her public crucifixion (2013). What will follow is an exploration of the JT phenomenon and the defence of the desperately wicked, Laura Albert. 

[Part one]

When I first heard of the literary persona, JT Leroy, I was in the car of a psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll vegan, obviously.  To begin with was the concept that initially sparked my interest. A literary hoax?!  Interesting. A literary hoax so successful that a mass of celebrity followers surrounded and worshipped them? Genius!  Someone who convinced the likes of Wynonna Rider and Billy Corgan that this literary persona was real? Hilarious. But the more I read into it, the more I was drawn to it, the more I felt the weight of JT settle into my psyche and whisper to me that he was real. I read snippets of Sarah when I was incredibly sad – okay, it was because of a hellish comedown that triggered some serious mental health issues – but I felt him, I felt his pain and together we shared our heartache. I knew that with every word I read, every sentence that broke my heart was written by someone who “wasn’t real”. That is to say, he didn’t have a host, a body. He was as Albert described, an avatar. He was fictitious and it plainly stated so on the cover of all the books “fiction” – but that didn’t mean that the pain wasn’t real, that the trauma wasn’t tangible and provocative in the blurring of fantasy and reality, identity and embodiment, “artist and audience” (Langer: 2013). When writing, Albert states, she was made to use a voice that her gender presented, she was made to write as a woman. That was too painful, “too traumatic” (Bennett: 2016).  Confronted with the binary choices of a male or female voice, Albert chose the former. JT was the voice, the host for her pain and her art, famously quoting him to be like a “pair of asbestos gloves” to process the trauma she was otherwise incapable of handling (Sauvelle: 2016: Out; Brady: 2016: Irish Times). This came with the weight of shame for Albert, who felt ashamed about her body, the trauma inflicted on her body, gender and sexuality. In fact, the notion of shame is a reoccurring theme, both within her narrative and JT’s; but I think this shame is placed upon her as much as she feels she has it. Albert explicitly understands the connotations of trauma on a non-male, often non-conforming body, as well as the shame associated with mental health and childhood traumas. This for me, resonates on many levels, shame for non-male, non-conforming bodies lies on the grounds of weight, it’s functions (such as periods or lactation) but also the non-male body and trauma in which these experiences are invalidated by reductive, patriarchal terminology.  How many times has any women with mental health issues been dubbed with daddy issues? How many times have women with any hint of emotion been dubbed a crazy bitch? [Part two]

In stark contrast to our fictitious wonder boy, Albert posed as Speedie, JT’s handler (Rich: 2006: The Paris Review). She was the brazen, bold and loud woman that stood by his side and practiced a “Svengali” like sway over JT. To put it simply, she was too much; too assertive, too much mouth, too much punk rock rage and artistry that is altogether nonsensical and realistic (Delaney: 2016: The Guardian; Handy: 2008: Vanity Fair). The gender roles were reversed, then disregarded all-together and it left people to create polarised impression of the duo. In this sense, I think that Albert does not perform her gender adequately and simply doesn’t want to and, why should she? She’s an artist, a creator, the limits of her self-expression shouldn’t be defined, she is the perfectly complex and enigmatic artist. Speedie was not to be trusted; even when she out rightly stated she was JT. Even Carrie Fischer, an outspoken woman and advocate for equal rights, thought Speedie was a manipulative coattail rider (Rich: 2006: The Paris Review). I think that this just lends credit to the fact that anyone can be capable of discrediting female agency. The fact that people thought the idea of the hoax itself being poorly constructed is just another way of saying that Albert failed to think of the consequences of her actions, when she knew them, she lives them to this day. When the after-school specials came on, the child who suffered abuse was an angelic, blonde haired, blue eyed boy - either gender of boy or girl were thin – and Albert knew she didn’t fit these moulds (Brady: 2016: Irish Times). These were the children that were believed, these were the children whose pain was validated. More to the point, I believe that as a boy Albert could shrug off some connotations of child abuse that wasn’t immediately reduced somewhere along the lines of the virgin/whore dichotomy and predatory lens of the male gaze. That is not to say child abuse does not happen to boys, but rather that she was able to shake off the connotations associated with her current, adult body that gave her a more direct route of addressing her trauma. So, this is my problem, when the phenomenon of JT is called a hoax, it completely disregards her pain and implies her intent to deceive, she wasn’t thinking about the literary scene (Langer: 2013). Where some have said it was for fame and money, I remind myself I don’t know any victims of abuse, sexual or otherwise, who have decided to neatly unwrap their trauma and abuse, stare at it and see wads of cash. [Part three]

The tight weaving of trauma and fiction leaves most dazzled, it’s hard not to be, you’re dipped into the Southern Gothic without warning and left dripping with melancholy heartache. The performance of JT was mostly sustained by his literature and by Knoops performance as JT’s “public self” (Desta: 2016: Vanity Fair). When I read this, I really liked this concept because it carries with it the well-known connotations of having two sides to each person: one we show the world and who we are when no-one is watching. The public side is one that was simply embodied and is arguably a fantastic and compelling piece of performance art, if nothing else. The problem with the piece is that in creating an avatar who was transgender at the most and gender non-conforming at the least, rumoured to having AIDS, was that this voice overrode those actually situated within those positionalities, it gained so much attention whereas the reality of many non-heterosexual/gender non-conforming writers did not gain the recognition they deserved (Sunderland: 2016: Broadly). This is the one thing that can’t be disputed, but I don’t think it’s actually directly related to Albert, but rather the society to which she was presenting. It can’t be said that both Albert and Knoop didn’t have oppression, these people were not well off – it was often commented how much food they ordered and took home. Both of their sexualities could arguably be seen as non-straight, but only Savannah even slightly benefited from this in gaining all the gifts, recognition and praise that everyone thought JT deserved; she gained the benefits of a counter narrative whilst being politically, socially and emotionally more stable than that of Laura’s avatar. But that is not to say in enacting and channelling JT, she didn’t bring these issues to light. The tricky thing here is not to compare oppression (as oppression is incomparable) but to understand that these were not people exactly riddled with privilege. Albert is a Jewish, once very overweight woman who struggled with her gender identity simply because of the gender stereotypes set before her. She could not successfully perform the gender of “woman” and didn’t want to, it did not reflect who she was or how she felt (Sauvelle: 2016: Out). More to the point, do we ever successfully perform gender to the fullest? In a performance that consists of repetitions and exaggerations, are we ever to fulfil a gender norm that is constantly shifting and ultimately, unattainable? Without sounding like a cliché, I’m here to argue that Albert was before her time – the only difference is that our avatars exist online as the public image we portray via various outlets of social media (Langer: 2013). Laura’s avatar happened to have a host, a living, breathing host with sentient thoughts and similar physical features. We are, as Albert says, “curating another self” (Sunderland: 2016: Broadly; Desta: 2016: Vanity Fair). Personally, I rather enjoy this process; I project certain images that hold certain connotations and curate an image around the “self.” It gives me a breather from actual gender performativity though (albeit clickbait) media, art, music, literature. It’s a multimedia platform and expression of the self that can be quite liberating. Who in this world isn’t presenting an online image? Celebrities nowadays very carefully curate their image and even, in particular circumstances, outwardly perform this image to the point of performance art – need I say Bowie or Gaga? (Benson: 2006) And dare I ask, is there such a thing as unintentional performance art? And does intention wholly shape the art or can it be, of itself, thought-provoking and challenging? To circle back, JT was created out of pain; his image was that of the child whose pain is believed, heard and understood. Albert had a very pragmatic understanding that despite her punk-rock, I-don’t-give-a-fxck, “this shouldn’t be the way but it is” attitude, that this boy would be more interesting and compelling than that of a woman in her thirties (Handy: 2008: Vanity Fair). But, as stated before, in Albert’s case the use of an avatar was not merely an act of creation, but that of survival. Which leads me to the point that the reveal of this “hoax” left Albert’s career in tatters. Those intent on fooling others firstly, know the implications of such a set up, and secondly, have a more succinct plan (Handy: Vanity Fair: 2008). If taking home excessive amounts of food wasn’t a big enough tip-off then the not-so-chronological accounts of JT’s life and fuzzy details should well have been. 

[Part four] 

For me, one of the most frustrating aspects of the whole story is that is that if she were a man, she would be crowned a gritty literary rock ‘n’ roll outlaw, a controversial cultural icon.  But instead she was vilified and branded a liar. Worst of all she didn’t apologise, she didn’t beg for forgiveness and cry on Oprah, she sank back into anonymity and remained silent (Delaney: 2016: The Guardian). The backlash was bitter and hateful, people felt like they knew the industry and knew themselves enough to know better, many felt like their place in the literary scene had been overwritten by someone who had never experienced the things they wrote about (and in my opinion, rightly so.) As Langer said, maybe it was all inevitable, but it was also unfair (2013). Let’s just take a (male) gaze into Hollywood and notice that the likes of Johnny Depp or Woodey Allen, intricately separated from their art, escaping deserved persecution. If somehow, these people have separated the person and the product, the personal and the political, then can the same be done for Laura Albert, whose intentions weren’t made of malice, but trauma and a desire to be heard? Whose discourse, however deceitful, has created as space of empathy, trauma and healing? (Bennett: 2016) For me, JT Leroy is a collective pool of sadness, nostalgic and dizzying sadness and trauma and healing. I feel him when I don’t quite know where I’m going, I feel like he’s sat with me when I lose pieces of myself after drinking too much and not knowing if I’ve said something horrific and unfunny in any circumstance. I can see him crouched in the corner when I sob over a song or lost love and I imagine him coming over to hold me, or to take my hand and walk me down to McDonalds. He’s there, sat in a moody pose on my bed when I listen to Cigarettes After Sex, hovering somewhere in the in-betweens of this world and the next, like Tinkerbell, somewhere between sleep and awake, between here and Neverland. I think that when Laura quoted that passage of the Jerimiah’s, from the bible, she spoke of the duality of the human soul, conflicting sentient thoughts and emotions. Not just regarding her plain and unintentional deceit, but of our own, how that despite everything, we want to believe he’s real and because of that he is. That we knew it all along, we deceived ourselves into thinking such a boy could have lived, that despite our insistence that gender performativity and presentation is not important it definitely mattered when the gender of the author was revealed. The heart is deceitful; we are deceitful and we fool ourselves into thinking that the human disposition is anything but wicked and selfish, and that we as a society have grown to the point that we can understand it and its conflicting resolutions. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can understand it? Maybe it’s not meant to be understood, just acknowledged, accepted, like Albert’s talent and more importantly, her narrative.