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When Savannah Knoop was unmasked as the face of the mysterious author JT LeRoy in 2005, one of the biggest literary hoaxes of the modern era was revealed. To some, it was a compelling experiment with authorship and identity. To others, it was an unforgivable deception.
''Girl Boy Girl'' tells the story of how a young, queer college drop out came to portray the young trans hustler turned literary wunderkind JT LeRoy, a persona created by Knoop's sister-in-law, Laura Albert, to help sell her books. For six years, Knoop led a secret double life, traveling through the looking glass of celebrity - embraced by celebrities and artists like Michael Jackson, Carrie Fisher, Courtney Love, Winona Ryder, Asia Argento, Gus Van Sant, and Armistead Maupin to name but a few - to find liberation and alienation in equal measures.
As JT's fame grew, the charade became harder to maintain, and Knoop started to resent the role. Knoop's entanglement with the persona of JT Leroy and his creator was a game played at the very limits of self-expression, one that changed Knoop's sense of self forever, and inadvertently helped Knoop find themself while pretending to be someone they were not. This film tie-in edition to coincide with the major motion picture starring Kristen Stewart as Savannah/JT includes a new foreward by the author reflecting on the continued life of the JT LeRoy story in the "post-truth" era.
Author: Savannah Knoop.
Paperback, 224 pp, Orig. Published 2008, This Edition Published may 2019