Jeremiah “Terminator” LeRoy, a gender-fluid teenager and ex-prostitute who channeled his troubled West Virginia childhood into bleakly honest prose, captivated the literary world and celebrities alike. Tom Waits, Gus Van Sant, and Courtney Love were just a few of the stars smitten with this mysterious boy wonder, who began appearing in public as an androgynous figure in sunglasses and a wig. But in 2005, six years after LeRoy’s first book was published, it came to light that LeRoy didn’t exist at all—he was the creation of Laura Albert, a 40-year-old mom and former phone sex operator. Albert employed LeRoy as her avatar, disguising her sister-in-law as the writer in public while Albert fluidly channeled the voice of LeRoy in phone calls with agents, celebrities, and the media. Author tells this dizzying tale of alter egos through Albert’s perspective and an extraordinary collision of photos, footage, and recorded calls. The result is a spectacular story of fame and fabrication that shatters conventional notions of identity and authenticity.  EM