And Yet *Another* False Memoir....

Arghh why do they keep doing this and ruining it for true memoirists AND WHY don't pubs at least do some homework, such as demanding docs, and validating story etc...?

Holy crap. I know the anger (or whatever it is a person feels when he reads these things) should be directed at the author, but how in the world could Riverhead allow something like THIS to happen? It really doesn't make much sense.

Was just about to post this story, William beat me to it...

This line sums it up:

"She seems to be very, very naïve," McGrath said. "There was a way to do this book honestly and have it be just as compelling."

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This kind of thing certainly make it harder to sell memoir, but for authors > publishers and to the public.

But what should a publisher do?

Book publishers do not engage in systematic fact checking. On the face of it, how would you know a story like this is false? Many of these memoirs (this one, the Frey book, the Holocaust tale) come from people who flew under the radar, with no real online presence. So checking is not quick and easy.

Let me offer two examples from my own life . . .

The key points of Look Me in the Eye (where I lived, my friends, my careers) are all verifiable in five minutes online, because I did things that others wrote about. But what if I'd done sound for a local band, instead of played with KISS? What if I'd been a manager at the local Cadillac dealer instead of starting Robison Service? Just a few steps down and I'd have been invisible . . .

Which takes us to where my brother was. As a kid, he didn't do anything you could read about online. How do you know if his claims about the doctor in RWS were true? Well, as it happened, the doctors kids challenged his claims in a very public way, and St Martins responded with a defense. Several years later, my brother prevailed. After lawyers from both sides interviewed the surviving players, and read all the printed material extant, the book stood unchanged.

Do you have any idea what that fact checking via attorneys cost?

Upwards of half a million dollars.

What should a publisher do?

In my experience hanging around Crown, they don't have a big surplus of people. Who would do it at a typical publisher? And how? It's somewhat easy to see if a person attended a particular school, but what about checking on friends/enemies/people in the tale? It's hard to see how they'd do it all.

I also think such a fact checking operation might stifle creativity, if authors had to justify themselves line by line.

That said, publishers are aware of the need to print stuff that's correct. However, most trust authors to be partners in pursuit of this goal. We have questions of who said what, but it's up to me to get those answers. If the authors can't be trusted, the whole system sort of falls apart.

In a telephone interview, Seltzer's sister, Hoffman, 47, said: "It could have and should have been stopped before now." Referring to the publisher, she added: "I don't know how they do business, but I would think that protocol would have them doing fact-checking."

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In other words: "Anyone could be a thief, so frisk everyone."

Another one? This is nuts. I'm left wondering if this is some new phenomenon or if a significant percentage of what we're presented with as 'true stories' have always been complete, utter bullshit.

I interviewed Terri Cheney on her book, Manic: A Memoir, last week. Part of my agreement with the outfit I'm working with is for me to put a review on Amazon as well. While I was posting my commentary, I looked at what other people had to say and there were some doubters among the reviewers.

I couldn't tell you how true-to-life her story is. I've no choice but to take her at her word. I hope she was honest. The book was wonderful and felt important -- but only if it's true. If it's a lie, it's useless.

Why coudn't Margaret Jones just have written it as a first person novel? It sounds compelling enough. Holy Hell! Didn't anyone learn anything from Frey?

Stew21 said:

Why coudn't Margaret Jones just have written it as a first person novel? It sounds compelling enough. Holy Hell! Didn't anyone learn anything from Frey?

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It's what I asked myself. And she could have kept her own name. Could it be that it's easier to sell a memoir (to a publisher) than a novel?
In that case I could surely write one. hmmmm...

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That book is so far from being a memoir (and some--if not most-- of the "facts" should have been relatively easy to check). Even her bio is wrong.

I just weep for this generation where it's obviously impossible to understand what is a LIE and what is the TRUTH.

jeepers.

Thats one of the resons I drove to Washington for a sit down with Elaine English, because my story is true with newspaper accounts to back it up, BUT, I still shyed away from a memoir because after 27 years I couldn't recall some things exactly and I wasn't sure about getting permissions on others. She agreed with me that I could go both ways with the story but ultimately I decided to go novel because of the shit going on with the likes of these people. The problem for me is that as a memoir the story is a solid sell because of the subject matter, where as a novel it loses the credibility of the truth associated, and quite frankly really blows.....

Appalling. I'm not a memoirist, only a mere biographer, but this sort of thing really chaps my pancakes, because it doesn't have to happen. The New York Times had a good piece on this today that made me crazier and crazier as I read through it--and it's almost funny that it was her sister that blew the whistle on her. If you're going to make yourself out to be the hero of a story that isn't true, you'd better make sure your family knows you're doing it. (But better advice is: Don't make yourself the hero of a story that isn't true, unless you're planning to pass it off as FICTION.)

Criminy.

Truth sells better than fiction--which is why publishers itch for 'stranger than truth' stuff. Yes, they do trust the author not to BS when marketing something as truth, but it takes time and money to verify that. Neither of which the publsiher wants to waste. They can pull the books back, slap on a fiction label and reissue them. They can also sue the author.

If the writing is good enough it could have been a novel.
I can't imagine what advice she was given by her agent.
Memoirs get you more publicity because TV / Radio / magazines like the "true" angle. When I got bites for publicity interviews for LOTTERY they most often focused on my father winning the lottery and not that I wrote a novel...It's rare to get a lot of interest for fiction and marketing loves publicity...
I will tell you that I had to provide proof for my father's lottery win not only to my agent but to my editor and have been continually asked about specifics. Don't you think someone would have come forward if the USA Today article had been false?
This is why I shake my head when people ask on the board about changing their name to make it look more "ethnic" or try to hide their identity. It's not that easy anymore with the internet.

There are a couple of writing crimes I don't understand, namely plagiarism and false memoirs.

It would always seem to me that the only satisfaction to be had from this difficult pursuit would be from your own words and the acceptance of your tale, fiction or non-, as worthy.

Writing seems like one of the efforts where fudging it would bring no glow. You can't 'get away' with anything in writing, because you're always in your own head. You'd always know that you were full of shit. How could you smile through that?

Hu, Orion, I'm a little surprised you were asked for proof on papa. It was just an interesting tidbit of bio, not affecting your novel at all-'cause ya wrote a novel. While I think the problem w/ Selzer is all Selzer, not the pub, it does seem like they could prevent the tremendous hassle and financial loss by having someone verify a few key facts early on. Heck, do it after the contract's signed, but before they've ordered a print run. Tell her to hand over her transcripts. (Uh, miss, private Episcopal school in Sherman Freakin' Oaks? Purt far from Compton, no?) Seems like if they'd ask our Lottery lady to show proof of life w/ essentially nothing at stake, a pub could have the smarts to ask a supposed memoirist for prrof when everything's at stake. Everything.
But still, all her doing. Just sayin' the pub could protect itself.

I find this trend deplorable, but I understand it. It is, I suspect, easier for an unpublished writer to get his/her "shocking, true memoir" published than to get his/her compelling fictional novel published. I suspect this because although I'm still struggling to even find an agent for my novels, I've had offers from agents to rep me for my memoir if I was willing to write it. (So you won't wonder, those offers came based on a very brief memoir essay of mine called, "Daughter of the Midwest's Methamphetamine Al Capone.")

I can assure you that my memoir would be no more compelling and no better written than my novels, and yet its "true story" status makes it more interesting to agents and publishers. *sigh*

People who can't sell their novels market them as memoirs. For this reality TV generation, it's a quicker (and maybe easier way) way to success.

With respect to Orion and proving the lottery win . . . if the things I've done were not matters of public record online, I am sure Crown would have asked me for some kind of evidence that the whole thing wasn't made up.

But like I said in my earlier post, when you get into issues like how kids treated each other in school or whether your buddy was in a gang, it's just not very checkable.

Sheryl Nantus said:

I just weep for this generation where it's obviously impossible to understand what is a LIE and what is the TRUTH.

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Which generation?

Folks who were born in 1975, like Margaret Jones?

Folks who were born in 1969, like James Frey?

Folks who were born in 1950, like Timothy Barrus, a/k/a Nasdijj?

Folks who were born in 1937, like Misha deFonseca?

Folks who were born in 1911, like Daniel James, a/k/a Danny Santiago?

maestrowork said:

People who can't sell their novels market them as memoirs. For this reality TV generation, it's a quicker (and maybe easier way) way to success.

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For a while.

It's like any other lie, I guess. People tell it for the moment, without realizing they're going to get caught eventually.

You know what's crazy? My story is so important to me that I want it to be told without any question as to it's accuracy. That's why I chose the novel route. If I do unintentionally get something wrong,
I don't want the story to be ruined because of it. I can't for the life of me understand why other authors wouldn't feel the same way, or accompany their stories with pages of disclaimers on things they may not be clear about.