reverse praise

interesting article about how many critics who praise brokeback mountain are actually forcing the gay-ness of the story back into the closet. it's frightening to think of praise as negatively affecting something, taking away while it gives. but at least people are talkin'

perhaps it was the late hour of the night but reading about the "hoax" surrounding author JT Leroy was quite confusing... i have never read the books but apparently the world was lead to believe they were written by a young man with a crazy past...it turns out the author is a fictional character created by an older woman. So, in my confusion i went to amazon and read some reviews of Leroy's books and found these scathing denouncements from people who felt tricked.... in some ways i want to say that the book isn't total crap just cause it wasn't written by who you thought it was (i'm not even sure if the book is classified as fiction or non) but the more i looked into the story the wierder it got... like some other woman posing as the young, gender confused Leroy and then perhaps the most baffling is that the "real" author of the books will not admit that Leroy is made up, and there is even a blog written by "Leroy" with strange testimonials from random celebrities stating that Leroy is in fact a real person...

anyone who's read any JT Leroy care to weigh in?