I saw this post at Galleycat about the mysterious transvestite cult author J.T. Leroy (Sarah, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things). As the Galleycat post suggests, there has been much speculation over the years about whether or not Leroy is a real person or perhaps simply the pseudonym and persona of another author, and the evidence remains inconclusive. Having never read any of Leroy’s books, I don’t have much to say about Leroy as writer, but, as a bookstore clerk in Los Angeles, I did see him (or someone pretending to be him) in the flesh, so I may have something to add on the subject of whether or not he exists.I’m probably a little off on some of the specifics, but here’s what I remember. On a weekday sometime during 2002 or 2003 (see, I told you I’m a little foggy here), the manager told us that she’d gotten a call from Leroy’s representative and that he would be stopping by to sign some books. We bookstore clerks, aware of Leroy’s reclusiveness, mysteriousness, and even the possibility that he didn’t exist, awaited his arrival with much curiosity. Many speculated that it was a hoax and he wouldn’t show. But then he did. He wore very baggy clothes including a much too large gray hooded sweatshirt. The hood was pulled low over his face, which was further obscured by a disheveled blonde wig. In photos, you almost never see Leroy’s face, and even though we were in close proximity to him as he signed books, none of us got a very good look at him. Nor did he talk much, mumbling one word answers or giggling nervously in response to our questions. The strange thing was, even though my coworkers and I had all seen him in the flesh, after he was gone none of us were any more or less sure that he was actually real.
My Birthday: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon
When I graduated the first time: Margaret A. Salinger's Dream Catcher
Second Graduation: Difficult to tell because he quit recording the month.
I found it interesting to see what he read while I was fighting in Iraq. I read what ever I could get my hands on, which was usually a book a person found on their bookshelf– dusty, dogeared, and unwanted– and placed into an office or church care package. Most FOBs had a stack of these books for trade. I traveled around so I would take a book from one location and trade it at the next FOB. This helped a twenty to thirty book library rotate its inventory. Art and I both ended up reading the Da Vinci Code around the same time. (A soldier I knew received it for Christmas.) None of the other books were the same. (Note: Shackleton's Valiant Voyage a book I picked up at FOB Tiger and left at FOB Byers, is great. I didn't see it on Art's list, but I didn't look though all 40 years.)
Oh man, I suddenly feel really old, apparently he didn't know how to read when I was born! I also feel lazy and unorganized, not only have I not read that many books, I forgot to write them all down! He was reading "Childhood's End" when I graduated from HS, which would make me…:-)