I doubt Strausbaugh fell for anything. More likely, he simply didn't care about Leroy's authenticity. Which seems fair—you'd have to be a real idiot to buy into Leroy's ludicrous biography, and it seemed clear his “past” was just a disposable veneer. That didn't interfere with some perfectly serviceable writing.
As claimed by St. John, Leroy was actually created by writer Laura Albert and associate Geoffrey Knoop “to gain access first to literary circles and, later, to celebrities.” It worked, too. Consider the new De Capo Press collection, Best Music Writing 2005, guest-edited by Leroy. He's the right non-entity for the job.
Leroy—who was with the Press until Jeff Koyen took over as editor—still has connections to the paper. Best Music Writing 2005 is dedicated to former Press contributor Henry Flesh, and Leroy's introduction recalls the times that Strausbaugh had to reassure publicists that Leroy was for real.
The introduction reveals a lot about the delusions of rock writers and rock musicians. It closes with a long except from an article written by Leroy's “writing mentor,” Mary Gaitskill. It's the final ten paragraphs of a 1988 article from Alternative Press in which Gaitskill—presumably herself conned—then cons Radiohead's Thom Yorke with the touching tale of how the band's music changed the life of one JT Leroy, former truck stop drag queen-hooker.
Yorke falls for the whole thing, as did AP's editors, and it's just a perfect circle jerk of idiocy. That also sums up Best Music Writing 2005. The article about Ray Charles is pretty good, and the John Peel tribute is worth reading. Everything else in the book is just snake oil. That includes Leroy's closing “Acknowledgments” page—which he wraps up by begging for more free CDs. Leroy may be fake, but he's one authentic rock critic.
