On Frey and Redemption, and a note on Sir or Madam Leroy

In the past week, I've exchanged emails with a woman who is sympathetic with "James," as she calls him. She asked me what I would do to him, how I would punish him, would I ask him to give all the money back? I replied that punishment is not my job, but that yeah, giving all the money to charity would be a good start, and to promise never to make another dollar based on the fame (infamy, fame, same diff these days) he now has, maybe take a day job. Maybe promise that he'll submit to publishers any of the fiction he now plans to write under a pseudonym (not to use his name), that is, to start from scratch as a writer. But what interested me most about our interaction, as it did with the Oprah and "James" fans who called Larry King, is how much the redemptive tale Frey told had moved them, and how much they just wanted him to stay redeemed. Powerful stuff this redemption.
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People have asked me why I haven't addressed the J. T. Leroy issue more. Three reasons. One, there haven't been nearly as many or as interesting pieces written about it. Two, my passion/obsession is with writers abusing memoir. Three, I just don't know where I stand on the issue. I am not a Leroy fan, not a Leroy hater. I have read stories but not entire books. Were I a fan, I might feel betrayed. But I do feel that fiction writers are entitled to hide their identities. That he/she misrepresented himself/herself as someone who has lived a similar life to his characters may make him/her a really lousy person, but does it make his/her work illegitimate? You tell me. A couple of women named George (Sand & Eliot) don't seem to get much grief for having hidden their genders these days. But that's facile and cute, if marginally amusing; I'd really love to hear from someone who's not a celebrity but just a Leroy reader, a lover of the work, on how he or she feels about Leroy's unmasking. The press/media has been pretty quiet about it all - perhaps Leroy picked the best week ever to be exposed: Frey is taking all the heat.