A Million Little Pieces of Little Tree

You might have to register to read this one as it's in the NYT, or maybe someone will come up with another link.

Oprah listed Forrest Carter's The Education of Little Tree as a recommended title on her site as of several "guaranteed page-turners from Oprah's personal collection." But she blamed an "archival error" for the listing and removed it because of the author's racist background.

In 1976, the book was a hugely popular book -- originally promoted as a real-life memoir -- about an orphan raised by his Cherokee grandparents. The author, Forrest Carter, claimed to be Little Tree. But after publication, suspicions arose about the author, and it turned out the book was a fictionalized memoir. The author was actually Asa Earl Carter, a former KKK member and George Wallace speechwriter who wrote the line "Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" (He did claim to be part Cherokee, though.)

The book itself has come under controversy for its substance. Native American author Sherman Alexie says, "Little Tree is a lovely little book, and I sometimes wonder if it is an act of romantic atonement by a guilt-ridden white supremacist, but ultimately I think it is the racial hypocrisy of a white supremacist." On the other hand, many complain that the depiction of Cherokee life in the book is inaccurate and that the book is overly romanticized.

This brings up all sorts of interesting issues. First, you have the old fictionalized memoir issue raising its ugly head again. This is like the "Million Little Pieces" controversy. Also, while the original publisher categorized it as fiction after the revelations, they didn't change the introduction (which referred to Carter as the Cherokee "Storyteller in Council" ). So this also reminds me of Go Ask Alice, which has been in print for years despite growing controversy about its veracity. (How many of the entries, if any, were real diary entries, and how many were edited, rewritten, or written from scratch?) In that case, the book is still in print, and the publisher "solved" everything by categorizing it as fiction. Yeah, right. Never mind that teachers still treat it as a real-life diary and many stores still shelve it under nonfiction.

Also, there are *lots* of famous authors who were absolute jerks. Some were racist, others were anti-Semites, others hated the Irish, others hated Protestants... Does this mean they should be removed from recommended reading lists? Or should we separate the author from the work? Or does that depend? And what are the limits (if any)?

And what about authors who are trying to escape an embarrassing past? Can they ever escape it? Should they be allowed to escape the past, or are past sins always relevant, whatever they are? This could apply not only to those who have been in white supremacist groups but also to authors who have been in prison, abused drugs, or even cheated on their spouses or for that matter.

Unique said:

hmm...I'd never heard of this controversy. I don't run in those circles and I don't give a damn.

I read the book. I liked it. My son watched the movie. He liked it.

Romanticized? Which part? None of it seemed overly 'romantic' to me - none if you're using romantic in a positive way.

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I think they meant romanticized in that it used the concept of a "noble savage." Many people dislike that portrayal of Native Americans because it's overly sentimental and one-sided, and some people see the concept of the "noble savage" as pandering rather than a true positive portrayal. But I haven't read the book myself, so I don't know if it did do this sort of thing.

Unique said:

Little Tree had a good life going on with his grandparents. He was taken away from his family and put in a boarding school against his wishes and the wishes of his grandparents. What part of that doesn't suck?

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The story sounds really cool. I think sometimes we are too quick to drop something because of a controversy like this and forget that the story can still have an impact, even if there was some deception in the way it was promoted. On the other hand, sometimes people are too willing to accept a story because they're told it's true. Have you read Go Ask Alice? Blech. I could learn more about the issue by reading well written fiction that was promoted as fiction rather than a fake diary.

Unique said:

And for the record - Oprah is probably a nice woman but she holds way too much sway in the literary world. She ain't all that. M'kay?

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But this was an issue way back before she was involved. I remember reading about the controversy shortly after the book was published, perhaps in Time magazine. This was way back before Oprah had a show. (Well she had a show in Baltimore, called People Are Talking, but she wasn't the sole stare, was only known to a limited audience, and was far from influential.)

Edited to Add
Here are some links about The Education of Little Tree.
The NativeWeb.org article on the book...
The Wikipedia entry on the book...
And the Salon article on the book...

Celia Cyanide said:

That book just pisses me off.

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Oh, I'd forgotten.

Celia Cyanide said:

What bothers me is that many people still defend it on the grounds that the intentions are good. Perhaps they are, but what good does it really do? Many, many young people use drugs, and many of them die. It should not have been hard for that woman to do some actual research about that? It's clear that she did not. I don't think it benefits young people to teach them false facts about drugs just to scare them off.

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Or if she did any research (wasn't Beatrice Sparks supposed to be a counsellor ), she still made things up to scare kids. The problem was that the kids who were either already doing drugs or exposed to kids who were doing drugs took one look at the book and snorted in laughter. Not exactly the effect Beatrice Sparks wanted.

What's ironic is that if you really wanted to scare kids away from drugs, you could do so easily. Show them what it's really like instead of what parents think it's like or what counsellors want to tell them it's like. Also, sometimes, you have to understand what teens respond to. Some anti-smoking campaigns figured this out. Telling kids that smoking turns their lungs funny colors and could kill them when they turn 50 had little effect. On the other hand, telling them that smoking makes them smell funny now and turns their fingernails colors now can be effective because teens want dates.

Celia Cyanide said:

I think that it is important to look at the work overall. I haven't read "Little Tree," but I love the JT Leroy books. I think they stand on their own. True or not, they are not supposed to be preachy, they are just supposed to tell an interesting story. Go Ask Alice does not.

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Go Ask Alice is like a written version of Reefer Madness and similar "scare tactic" movies.