I thought I had pretty well said all I care to about JT Leroy last week, but I've been slowly making my way through the last Oxford American music issue (yes, I'm months behind) and came across a Leroy "essay" about Loretta Lynn that reminded me there had been a dust-up about the accuracy of the piece last summer. That's funny now, of course, as it has been shown that there is nothing accurate or real about this made-up character or "his" work. Again, however, it shows how much people were willing to let slide in the desire to believe the person writing these things was who he said he was.

In this case, "Leroy" wrote about Loretta Lynn and how his mother, Sarah, liked to strip to certain of Lynn's songs. Discrepancies noted in a Houston Press article about the piece dealt with whether or not there were Publix stores in Nashville at the time Leroy claimed to have visited one. The writer got into a tiff with OA Editor Marc Smirnoff, and the blogosphere hosted a short debate about all of this. Funny that such a preposterous piece, labeled in the magazine as an essay, wasn't seen as wholesale fiction for reasons well beyond debate about the presence of a grocery store. The whole thing reads like the melodramatic fiction of a high school student. As I noted last week, the author's bio becomes such a big part of people's interpretation of a work, that "Leroy's" background seemed to help otherwise sane people view this as worthwhile reading.

Nosing around the 'net in search of Leroy info, I came across "his" web site, which includes a blog. I've no idea if it's legit (as legit as a blog written by someone claiming to be a fictitious character can be, of course), but I was struck by this passage: "Sometimes the media writes things to be manipulated and we don't even know we're being manipulated. The author can stay invisible and appear to be stating a fact when they're carefully and seamlessly orchestrating a desired response. Usually you can tell because it is an artfully hidden attack that we are just trained to accept. There are certain words people will use and it's a horrible form of manipulation because they don't have to take responsibility for it or own it."

That's in a post about media coverage of Sean Penn's efforts to help Hurricane Katrina victims last year, but it might as well be about the creation and maintenance of Leroy, particularly about the media's unwitting assistance in the endeavor. Seeing things like this, as well as that horrible and obviously fictitious "essay" in the Oxford American makes me wonder if all of this is less a desperate attempt by someone unmarketable to become so and more an elaborate prank to expose the media's quick desire to elevate the unworthy if they have the right backstory.