By KIM CURTIS, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
One of publishing's most bizarre mysteries appears to finally have been solved.
The writer penning the novels of "JT LeRoy," a purported 25-year-old former male prostitute and drug addict, has been unmasked as a 40-year-old woman who allegedly undertook the ruse to get her work recognized.
LeRoy never existed and Laura Albert authored the books, according to a lawyer for her estranged partner, Geoffrey Knoop.
Knoop, 39, who apologized for playing a role in the hoax, said the stress of keeping it secret had become too much to bear. The couple split in December after 16 years and were trying to work out custody of their young son.
The unveiling of LeRoy comes at a time when the literary world is questioningthe work and identities of other authors with hard luck stories. Nasdijj, anaward-winning Navajo author, is now believed to be a white writer named TimothyPatrick Barrus. James Frey acknowledged fabricating or embellishing parts ofhis memoir, "A Million Little Pieces." St. Martin's Press recently added adisclaimer to an upcoming book by Augusten Burroughs, another memoirist who hasbeen challenged.
The LeRoy mystery began unraveling with an article in New York Magazine lastfall pointing toward Albert, who claimed to have rescued LeRoy from the streetsand started him on his literary career. Then last month a story in The New YorkTimes identified the person who often appeared in public as LeRoy as Knoop'shalf sister, Savannah Knoop, 25.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, a person claiming to be LeRoyinsisted Albert was not the writer, but refused to meet in person.
"Laura is not me. I am not Laura," the person said by telephone in a conferencecall with his lawyer.
Albert and Knoop, who live in San Francisco, did not return repeated phonecalls from the AP over the past month. LeRoy's lawyer, Peter Cane, had nocomment Monday.
Among other books, LeRoy's works include "Sarah" and "The Heart is DeceitfulAbove All Things," a short story collection that is supposed to come out as afilm this spring. None were best sellers, but LeRoy gained a following thatincluded celebrities such as Winona Ryder, Courtney Love, Carrie Fisher andMadonna.
With Knoop's account, however, the legend of LeRoy appears to end where itbegan a decade ago: with Albert.
As the story has been recounted in dozens of interviews by a person claiming tobe LeRoy, Albert was a social worker who took the trick-turning teen off thestreets of San Francisco's Tenderloin district around 1993. She guided him toDr. Terrence Owens, a psychologist specializing in treating adolescents.
Owens encouraged him to write and LeRoy took up the pen -- some say,brilliantly. Owens reportedly passed along an early manuscript to hiseditor-neighbor and by 2000 a literary icon was born.
Owens said patient confidentiality prevented him from confirming whether LeRoywas a patient. Feig said Owens counseled LeRoy by phone and met a stand-in -- ayoung hustler Albert and Knoop recruited off the streets -- only once in thelate 1990s.
But several people, including one-time close friend and filmmaker Gus Van Sant,said LeRoy involved them in conference calls with Owens, further supportingLeRoy's story.
LeRoy's gritty novels were purported to be based on his own experiences -- drugaddiction, prostitution and life on the streets. His latest, "Harold's End,"includes an introduction by writer Dave Eggers.
"He was already friends with 15 well-known writers," explained Van Sant whologged hundreds of hours on the phone with him over six years. "There was areal solid year when I was talking to him every day for at least an hour,sometimes five hours. We never ran out of things to talk about."
Without bookstore readings or in-person interviews, speculation about LeRoy'strue identity ran rampant. Some said he was Van Sant, other said he was authorDennis Cooper.
Knoop said the ruse began in 1996, when Albert first got in touch with Cooper.Afraid he wouldn't be interested in talking to a 30-something woman, shedecided to approach him as a teenage boy.
Cooper and others said they felt betrayed by the deception.
"The most astonishing thing to me is the amount of time and effort that(Albert) put into this," Cooper said in a recent telephone interview from Pariswhere he's working on a play. "It was an incredible performance."
In 2001, a person claiming to be LeRoy began appearing in public, usuallywearing wigs, sunglasses and hats. That person began hobnobbing withcelebrities, but never without Albert doing most of the talking.
In conversations with the AP, the person purporting to be LeRoy did not denylast month that Savannah Knoop was his stand-in. Savannah Knoop didn't returnphone calls or answer her door recently when a reporter showed up.
LeRoy's latest project was writing an episode of the current season of HBO's"Deadwood."
A spokeswoman for the network said "there has been no decision as to when thescript will be delivered or produced."
