USEFUL? DELIGHTFUL? ENJOYABLE? James Frey...JT Leroy...James Frey...JT Leroy. All week it's been nearly impossible to focus on one literary enigma without being distracted by the other. For the moment, Blog About Town will alight upon the JT "Terminator" Leroy hoax, exposed by New York and then The New York Times, and pretty much summed up at Gawker.

My awareness of "Terminator" came primarily through noticing (but rarely if ever reading) the many articles under that byline in New York Press, where John Strausbaugh once served as an editor. This week, tucked in the back pages of the Press, is an item in which J.R. Taylor muses over the Leroy fiasco and writes

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.

A paragraph later, Taylor writes

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.

I wonder if it's true that Strausbaugh didn't fall for the hoax yet persuaded publicists that Leroy was "for real."

Whether or not those publicists existed, others questioned Leroy's identity. As also noted at Gawker, Joy Press addressed the suspicions in the Village Voice back in 2001, quoting Mary Gaitskill:

All of this slipperiness has led some early supporters to wonder if they've been played. As Gaitskill put it, "It's occurred to me that the whole thing with Jeremy [J.T.] is a hoax, but I felt that even if it turned out to be a hoax, it's a very enjoyable one. And a hoax that exposes things about people, the confusion between love and art and publicity. A hoax that would be delightful and if people are made fools of, it would be OK—in fact, it would be useful."

I wonder.

At any rate, it seems that the NYPD can now call off the bag searches for Leroy's identity.

As for James Frey, Gawker links to a StarTribune.com item that recalls previous challenges to that author's credibility. And so on and so forth.

Whoops. See what I mean?

Here's www.jtleroy.com.

Photos: David Marc Fischer