At the Page-Turner blog, Jelani Cobb contemplates the Justice Department’s investigation of the Ferguson, Missouri, police department. “The release of the report, just days before the first black President attended the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday, in Selma, made this week feel whipsawed by progress and stagnation.”
In 2006, novelist Stephen Beachy revealed in New York magazine that teen-hustler-turned-novelist JT Leroy—whose fans and supporters included Lou Reed, Mary Gaitskill, and Michael Chabon—was in fact a woman named Laura Albert. Following a flurry of discussions about the fraud, interest in Leroy’s work dwindled. But two new films are about to shed new light on Albert and the people she conned. Jeff Feuerzeig’s new documentary, which will feature extensive interviews with a number of authors who believed Leroy, is currently in production. And this week Marjorie Sturm’s The Cult of JT Leroy will open in San Francisco. Sturm lost contact with Albert in 2003, but a friend was able to shoot additional footage of the author by pretending to be a fan.
The National Book Critics Circle will announce the winners of their 2014 awards on Thursday night at the New School. They NBCC will also present Toni Morrison with a Ivan Sandrof lifetime achievement award. On Wednesday, finalists will read brief selections of their nominated work.
A study has linked at least 46,000 Twitter accounts to the Islamic State.
Simon and Schuster has announced that it will publish Jimmy Carter’s memoir A Full Life: Reflections at 90 on July 7.
After years of operating at a loss, hemorrhaging more than $40 million in the two years before the Washington Post sold it for $1 in 2010, Newsweek is reporting a small profit.