Consequences of Faking a Memoir

Love_and_consequences

Another scandal has hit the literary world.  In case you haven’t read the Tuesday newspapers, here’s the gist of the plot.  Love and Consequences, a memoir by Margaret B. Jones, aka Margaret Seltzer, has been recalled and the book tour that was to start this week cancelled.  The author claimed to have been a foster child, half white, half native American, who grew up in South L.A., became a gang member and sold drugs. In truth she’s white, grew up with her biological family in Sherman Oaks and went to an exclusive private school.  She was profiled in the New York Times last week in a wonderful article. (I was ready to go buy that book.) Apparently her big sister read the article too and called Riverhead Books, the publisher, and told them it was all fake.  Jones/Seltzer’s agent is devastated, as is her editor, Sarah McGrath, who was quoted in the New York Times this morning saying, “There’s a huge personal betrayal here as well as a professional one…I’ve been talking to her [Seltzer] on the phone and getting e-mails from her for three years and her story never has changed…..There was a way to do this book honestly and have it be just as compelling.”

So once again the controversy over truth in memoir will heat up. (Remember James Frey?) I’m a stick in the mud on the subject; one of the few things I’m conservative about. I believe that if a book is called a memoir, readers can assume it’s the truth to the best of the author’s ability. And personally I feel ripped off if the author has lied. I read differently when I read non-fiction, I invest trust in what the writer says, I believe it’s true. Reading fiction is totally different; I’m willing to follow the writer’s imagination wherever it goes. On the other hand a friend and wonderful writer emailed me this morning that she thinks good writing is good writing no matter what. I know a lot of writers who feel this way – who cares just as long as it’s well written? How do you feel? Let us know under comments below.

But the fall out from faking this memoir is sad– for the agent, the editor, and for the author too. And what about that big sister who blew the whistle?! What a novel this whole story would make.

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