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Earlier today, it was revealed that ambiguous literary wunderkind JT Leroy, who claims to be an AIDS-stricken truck-stop hooker turned literary star, was really a fabrication of Laura Albert and Geoffrey Knoop and played, in public, by Knoop's half-sister Savannah. In an email sent to Galleycat, JT Leroy's book agent, Ira Silverberg, comments on being completely duped into believing his client:

"A good hoax is wonderful thing," literary agent Ira Silverberg emailed me this morning. "I'm all for it if doesn't hurt anyone." The false identity that "JT LeRoy" presented to the world, however, is the furthest thing from a "good" hoax in Silverberg's mind. "People were deceived in a brutal way: playing the AIDS card to elicit support, money, connections. That is simply unacceptable. It is morally reprehensible."

And while pretending to have AIDS is, indeed, "morally reprehensible," parlaying that disposition into a friendship with Courtney Love, as Leroy did, is beyond human tolerance or comprehension.

The Author Who Wasn't There [Galleycat]
Earlier: Happy Fake Writer Day, JT Leroy