Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy [Paperback]

Savannah Knoop (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 2008

The JT LeRoy scandal is a story of our times. In January 2006, the New York Times unmasked Savannah Knoop as the face of the mysterious author JT LeRoy. A media frenzy ensued as JT’s fans, mentors, and readers came to terms with the fact that the gay-male-ex-truck-stop-prostitute-turned literary-wunderkind was really a girl from San Francisco, whose sister-in-law wrote the books.
Girl Boy Girl is the story of how Savannah Knoop led this bizarre double life for six years, trading a precarious existence as a college dropout for a life in which she was embraced by celebrities and artists—Carrie Fisher, Courtney Love, Mary Ellen Mark, Winona Ryder, Asia Argento, Sharon Olds, Gus Van Sant, Mike Pitt, Calvin Klein, and Shirley Manson, to name a few—and traveled the world. Telling her side of the story for the first time, Savannah reveals how being perceived as a boy gave her a sense of confidence and entitlement she never had before. Her love affair with Asia Argento is particularly wrenching, as they embark on an intimate relationship that causes more alienation than closeness.
As Savannah and Laura struggle over control of the JT character, Savannah realizes the limits of the game - - and inadvertently finds herself through the adventure of being someone else.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

When is an HIV-positive, transgender, ex-truck-stop-prostitute turned pseudo-celebrity novelist none of the above? When the faux man of letters is JT Leroy, revealed to be erstwhile community-college coed Savannah Knoop, who masqueraded as her middle-aged sister-in-law Laura’s nom de plume. At 18, Knoop started living in public as JT, “a boy who became a girl, still pretending to be a boy.” Secret thumbsucker and compulsive overeater Laura, who was JT’s publicist, Speedie, created JT as a metaphor for her own pain—perhaps. Eventually, portraying JT became Savannah’s “exciting reprieve from real life. He had access to a world so beyond what I thought could be my own.” The game ran for seven years, ending in a 2006 public revelation/scandal. “The whole experience had been a contagious lie,” quoth Savannah, “that spread and obstructed what I wanted my life to be.” What with snapshots and celebrity photos, her confession’s a breezy, fast, oddly likable read for fans of bizarre deceit or, perhaps, just the bizarre. --Whitney Scott

About the Author

SAVANNAH KNOOP began to lead a double life in 1999 at the age of eighteen, when her sister-in-law asked her to be the face of JT LeRoy, author of the internationally acclaimed novels Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. Their true identities were revealed in 2006. Knoop began designing clothing six years ago and formed a clothing company under the name of Tinc. She lives in San Francisco.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press; A Seven Stories Press 1st Ed edition (October 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583228519
• ISBN-13: 978-1583228517
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Savannah Knoop began to lead a double life in 1999 at the age of eighteen, when her sister-in-law asked her to be the face of JT LeRoy, author of the internationally acclaimed books Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. Her true identity was revealed in 2006. She published a memoir about her experience titled Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy (Seven Stories Press). She began designing clothing six years ago and formed a clothing company under the name Tinc. She lives in San Francisco.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply fascinating., September 11, 2008

By 

Jo D. (CT USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy (Paperback)

Savannah Knoop's well written account of her experience as the body [or wig and glasses] of J. T. LeRoy, the famed but fictitious truckstop-boy-turned-author, is rivetting even if you've never read a LeRoy book or seen the movie. Simply put, the experience of seeing how people react to her when they think she's not just a he but also a victim and a celebrity is a fascinating exposure of the projections people make and of celebrity culture. Knoop captures both the humor and pathos of never being sure what people are seeing or reacting to when they believe her to be JT. Also, it is surprisingly easy to sympathize with Knoop, as she was not the mastermind of the hoax but in many ways simply a conveniently aimless and exploited sister-in-law. Her vexed relation to Laura Albert, equal parts admiration and resentment [and a sorority of shared eating disorders], is uncomfortable but very believable. Finally, this book interests not because it or the JT hoax is important in its own right but because of what it reveals about our insecurities, our self presentations, and our acute desires to be the sort of person, with the sort of experiences, others find desirable or charismatic -- to be, in short, the people we wish to be and are not.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book by a beautiful girl, February 11, 2011

By 

Ashley Renee - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy (Paperback)

I could not put this book down. Savannah's insecurities, her unsureness, and her honesty about her time spent as JT LeRoy makes for an amazing story. I related deeply to her personal struggles and the confusion of finding herself, and was fascinated by how she described going from an insecure teenager to a worldwide superstar. She is not a monster or a manipulator like so many have made her out to be. I saw none of that in this story. What i saw was a really beautiful person on a journey to find herself.

6 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars shamless & talentless, March 1, 2009

By 

T. Stamos - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy (Paperback)

This book... and the writer itself, is a good representation of a sign of the times...people's obsession with celebrity and how they will do anything to get in the limelight.

As is, the initial writer of the J.T. Leroy books, ought to be ashamed of herself. How can she feel no guilt? Most of her initial fans were people who identified with the horrific events described in her book. They related, identified and came to love the character...loved J.T. Leroy...for having suffered and overcome TRUE horrors in life. Thus, putting him/her on a pedestal. A pedestal she would never have been put on if those same fans knew that he/she had not actually gone through ANY of the books detailed events. Does she have the slightest clue what it feels like to be raped? To be abused? To be abandoned? To be sold as meat? How can she receive the accolades of one who has suffered and overcame when she has not done either?

It wasn't enough to profit off of a lie. now THIS book? explaining or trying to justify her actions and involvement in the whole scandal? to pawn off deceit as talent?

Who would care about the drivel that spews forth now?