He was the literary discovery of a lifetime – 19-year-old JT LeRoy who had grown up on the streets and had forwarded an astonishing, gritty memoir to a publisher. His reclusiveness punctuated by occasional shy appearances in dark glasses only served to intensify public interest, and the announcement of his planned gender transition fed the frenzy further. Celebrities flocked to do readings and offer their support: Nancy Sinatra, Lou Reed, Sandra Bernhard, among others. But who really was JT LeRoy? His story ebbs and flows, cuts back and forth, and soon snowballs into a literary scandal on a grand scale.