This may be the longest You Tell Me in history, but here goes:
What should be done about all of these fake memoirs?
Let that question percolate a little, and then let’s see if your opinion changes by the end of this post.
I’ve been trying to process the news about two more fake memoirs surfacing, one by Misha Difonseca, who admitted that her memoir about her alleged Holocaust escape was fiction, and now Margaret Seltzer (writing as Margaret B. Jones), who concocted a story about growing up in South Central Los Angeles as a half-white/half-Native American gang member (she is white and grew up in Sherman Oaks). These fabrications, of course, follow closely on the heels of the J.T. Leroy and James Frey scandals (NYTBR blog roundup of these four here), and amid investigations by The Australian questioning elements of Ishmael Beah’s memoir A LONG WAY GONE.
My first reaction is, of course, outrage that people could actually go through with these shenanigans, and resignation to the fact that the publishing industry will go through another round of beatdowns in the press and in public opinion. But after these initial reactions wore off, I’m left in a bit of a muddle. What really, should be done about this?
First off, as Michael Cader pointed out in Publishers Lunch today, I don’t think people are giving enough credit to Riverhead and editor Sarah McGrath for heading this matter off before the book was published. According to today’s NY Times article by Motoko Rich, knowing full well what happened in the Frey case, McGrath asked for (and received) several different pieces of corroborating evidence that backed up Seltzer’s story. Seltzer’s agent met with someone who claimed to be Seltzer’s foster sister. McGrath and her agent did not turn a blind eye to Seltzer’s fabrications and she did a more than cursory check, it just turned out that Seltzer had a whole lot more time to fake the truth than McGrath did to investigate it. Once the truth came to light, McGrath and Riverhead acted responsibly. I can’t fault them on this. The book was never published and no one bought it.
But fine, so you might say, the editor did what she could do without becoming a full-on investigative reporter. So why don’t publishers employ fact-checkers?
It’s complicated. As Ross Douthat points out, the Atlantic fact-checks their articles, as does the New Yorker. But for the Atlantic this amounts to checking about 600,000 words per year. That’s a holiday weekend in the publishing industry. It would take an army of fact-checkers even to do cursory checks of the millions of words published every year, it would be a tremendous expense, and that expense would inevitably drive up the price of books, reduce already slim margins…. I mean, are you willing to pay a lot more for a book just to root out a few bad apples?
One of the lesser-known (at least to outsiders) portions of a publishing contract is the warranty and indemnity clause. In nearly every publishing contract, the author has to warrant (i.e. promise) that they are the real author, that they have the ability to enter into the agreement, and usually when it’s a work of nonfiction, they have to pledge that what they have written is true and based on sound research. If a court rules that the author has broken this warranty they’re on the hook. Completely. It can seem onerous to the author to be on the hook like this and we agents negotiate the clause so that it’s as fair as possible, but ultimately it’s on them to tell the truth. And really, isn’t this how it should be?
Another lesser-known component of memoir writing is that, from a legal standpoint, sometimes the truth HAS to be fudged to avoid defaming people, such as removing identifying details and changing names, so that the person in question can’t point to the memoir and definitively identify themselves. Far from being a genre that is (or should be) held to journalistic standards, memoir is, and always has been, inherently a very squishy medium.
If anything, isn’t this is all a byproduct of the drive by publishers, and in our culture in general, to want an author to be the “perfect package?” Someone whose life story is just as compelling as their work, who isn’t just someone with a skill for words but someone who embodies their own work, this whole brand thing. We as a culture have become obsessed with authenticity — it’s not enough to just be talented, you also have to BE compelling. You can’t just write a good book, you need to be able to sit down on a talk show host’s couch and talk about your own human interest story, even if you’re a novelist. The fabulists are just filling a cultural niche that we’ve created and which is nearly impossible to fill. It’s so ironic that the more we as a culture want a great true story the more pressure there is to fake one.
Sure — it’s fun to pile on the publishers, but what really should be done about this? Should publishers bite the bullet, raise the prices on their books, employ fact-checkers and just hope that people will pay more for books when there is already incredible downward pressure on prices? Should we just treat these people as the outliers that they are, a few mistakes in an industry where thousands of books are published every year and live with a few embarrassments? Whatever the answer may be, it’s not an easy one.
So now you tell me: what should be done about the fake memoirs?
Precie says
Well, I don’t know about “What Should Be Done”…but I have to admit, as a consumer, I’m becoming more and more reluctant to buy memoirs.
Adaora A. says
I would like to say that people should present crushing proof that what they’re writing about is fact but she did that. She created a world with such rich detail. She even introduced her agent to her ‘gang brother’ or was it sister? The information is getting to murky for me to distiguish one from the other.
It angers me. Why couldn’t she just call it fiction? Some people would have identified with it, others would have thought it was great, some would have been indifferent. She lost her self-respect as a writer, and she is sucking the self-respect out of the buisness. It’s people like her and Frey that make aspiring writers look bad. It’s baffling to me how someone would just want to do something like this.
I don’t know, it’s the steriods of baseball.
The only thing about this post that gave me a bit of a chuckle was ” shenanigans.”
I quoted this man before but GLEN H from the movie ONCE had it right:
“What is a liar? A liar is someone who tells the truth about things that have never happened.”
D
Josephine Damian says
I remember James Frey saying he could not, as hard as he tried, get “Million Pieces” published as fiction, so he slapped a non-fiction label on it and – voila – instant sale.
Desperate people do desperate things. I don’t think any legal or financial penalty will ever stop it; writers can get their friends and family to lie and say what they wrote is true, or have then pose as “real people” from their memoirs – all for a piece of the action – short of hooking up the writer to the lie-detector machine (even that can be beaten), I don’t think any publisher can stop a wily, desperate scribe.
And I also think the celebrity culture we live in – people getting famous for no reason – is behind a lot of the mind set of these writers. Sad.
Nathan Bransford says
I don’t know how I wrote that entire post without a single reference to Templeton and The Wire.
I’m off my game. Forgive me.
Anonymous says
But it seems to me that very basic fact checking could be done. No, an editor/publisher shouldn’t be expected to go on a sluething expedition to confirm every detail of minutia in the book.
But common sense at some point should prevail.
ONE PHONE CALL to the Department of Social Services in L.A. could’ve confirmed if the author was in fact part of the foster care system, and upon finding she wasn’t, the book could’ve been stopped BEFORE the contract was signed.
I don’t want to pile on the editor because lord knows she’s probably been humiliated enough as it is, but sometimes I think dollar signs outweigh pure common sense in this industry. Authors who can’t publish a book as fiction call it a memoir instead and editors/publishers looking for “gold” fall for it in search of a bestseller.
R.C. says
When you say that authors sign a warranty clause, so that they are “on the hook” to tell the truth, what exactly does that mean? What consequences did these authors pay? Did they lose their royalties? Were they sued? Other than being brandished a liar and having slim odds of being published again, what happens to a fake-memoir writer? (Not that those two things aren’t terrible).
I’m not much of a memoir reader, so I don’t follow these stories.
benwah says
The lengths to which Margaret Jones/Seltzer went to support her fraudulent story points out how hard it is for the editor to uncover a fabrication if the writer is willing to make up facts. It’s a strange situation, but given the number of books published, I can’t imagine this is a hugely common occurance. More likely, I’d think, is that the abundance and availability of information today makes it more likely that fraudulent authors get exposed. Witness the various plagiarism cases of the past few years.
It is the author’s product. The editor & publisher help bring it to market, but ultimately the onus is on the author for the content.
It’s definitely made for interesting blog reading these past few days.
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
I’m not sure it’s that simple. Do they just give out names at the Dept. of Social Services?
If they do, yeah, that would be one way to check, but I’m not sure how easy it is to verify these types of stories. I mean, look at the resources The Australian is pouring into Ishmael Beah, and they’re professionals, not an editor with already too much work on their plate.
Nathan Bransford says
R.C.-
It varies based on the contract, but yes, if the author and/or publisher is sued based on the contents of the book the author may be on the hook for damages and sometimes legal fees. I can’t get into this in too much detail or specificity because the particular clauses we have are proprietary info, but this is the framework.
Josephine Damian says
Nathan: all those bad queries must have made you cross-eyed.
Katie says
What should be done?
I think that those who have earned money off their lies should be fined big-time (as in all the money they made) and the proceeds go to a charity, or the country’s libraries, or something like that. If the publisher loses money because the truth comes out after books are printed, and those books are taken back, then the author should have to pay those costs as well. In fact, I wouldn’t blame the publishers if they start putting a clause about this in their contracts for memoirs. Of course, if the agent or editor knew and was also in on the scam, then they should be made to pay as well.
Otherwise, what CAN be done? Like you point out, the editors can’t possibly make sure everything is true, and I’d hate for them to add that to their list of duties, for the same reasons that you and Jonathan Lyons pointed out.
Nope… America needs to realize that such things happen and blame no one other than the author, and the author should not gain anything through their lie.
r.c. says
Did anyone sue James Frey? I guess what I’m getting at is that if you’ve written a NYT bestseller, and a sequel, you’ve probably made a good chunk of change. What is to stop someone who doesn’t necessarily want a career as a writer from doing this to make a quick buck? And perhaps an unscrupulous publisher, too?
Did anyone ask for their money back after reading these books under false pretenses? I kinda doubt it, but I don’t know if there was some sort of class action suit or not. Everyone sues for any little thing these days.
Kalynne Pudner says
I think a new genre should be introduced. It could be called “Normative Conjecture.” (That’s philosophical jargon for that which coulda, shoulda, woulda been the case.)
Imagine:
“Dear Nathan,
Please consider reviewing my 78,000-word normative conjecture of having been raised by a pack of giant, blood-sucking koalas in the red-light district of San Bernadino.”
Just be warned that the interrogative form of a normative conjecture is…you guessed it: a rhetorical question.
Roxan says
I’m not sure what should be done. I can only think of those who may have a compelling true life story that will be reluctant to even write it.
Not all of the facts in a person’s life are recorded except in the stories told by family, friends,etc. of the person(s) involved. While they may back each other up, there no guarantee of it being the truth.
Siren Cristy aka Conspicuous Chick says
Unfortunately, imo, Frey’s career hasn’t suffered a bit from his fabrication. In fact, it’s made him a celebrity, which, in the current state of our society, practically guarantees him good sales of his upcoming novel. An argument could be made that his trajectory has served as a horrible example to desperate and unscrupulous writers.
Should agents and editors be responsible for a certain amount of fact checking? Yes.
Should agents lose their percentage if their client turns out to be a total fraud? Yes. I know I would be very reluctant to hire an agent I knew was affiliated with one of these projects.
Should the would-be author be required to return all advances and otherwise funds if they’re revealed as total liars? Yes, without hesitation.
If we want our children to grow up with integrity and empathy, then we need to stop glomming to the television over Britney’s every move, and hold our leaders accountable for their actions. The fake memoirs, and ongoing tales of simple plagarism plaguing the publishing industry are just symptoms of a much larger problem.
Adaora A. says
James Frey supposedly said he tried to get A MILLION LITTLE PIECES published as ‘fiction’ but his publisher (i.e. Doubleday who publishes John Grisham’s books, and some of Nora Roberts books), said it would sell better as a memoir. Why is this the case? Why is it that memoir continues to sell well when people are busted every day for lying. The author of SARA was discovered to not be the prostitute we believed but actually Laura Albert or whatever.
How often to authors go to jail for being busted as fudging their memoir? I think the royalties out weigh any minor consequences – minor to them anyways i.e. self-respect etc – which might come their way. All I’ve seen is these books becoming even bigger best-sellers. It’s that old ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Do they loose royalities when cases such as these are discovered Nathan?
Nathan Bransford says
r.c.-
Yes, there was a class-action lawsuit against James Frey, although not many people signed up, from what I recall. I talked about it here
Publishers don’t typically often go after authors for damages (the reward probably wouldn’t exceed the cost), but this could, perhaps, be one element of the fallout from these false memoirs. We shall see.
Adaora-
Yes, typically when an author has broken their warranty the publisher may terminate the agreement — whether this results in the forfeiture of royalties/advances paid or due depends on the agreement.
elarasophia says
I guess it will depend on whether memoir sales noticeably drop in the wake of these scandals. If they do, then the publishers could argue cause and effect, and hire the army of fact-checkers needed to be able to assure the readers that all memoirs published by them are true.
I think readers of memoirs would be willing to pay the extra cost. I bought Ishmael Beah’s book because I specifically wanted to read about his experiences, and I don’t recall being overly concerned with how much it cost. Word-of-mouth was a huge factor in my decision, and after reading the book, I recommended it to others. I am hugely disappointed in the findings of the investigators, and certainly won’t recommend the book to anyone now, unless the investigators conclude that the book was true. Confidence in the memoir leads directly to continuing word-of-mouth, in this case.
Anonymous says
Selling a fictional or even partially fictional “memoir,” which is supposed to be a type of NON-FICTION work, should be prosecutable as the fraud that it is.
The reason these “memoir” writers are doing this is because they are too impatient to break in to the novel market, and they want to make $$$$$ now. This is essentially a crime of intentional misrepresentation of intellectual property with the intent to mislead book publishers and customers.
If you are caucasian and write in your “memoir” that you are half Indian, that constitutes fraud. Furthermore, the publisher should be held accountable to some degree–if you’re going to publish a memoir–it is up to you to uphold the veracity of the content. Yes, as Lyons points out in his blog currently also on this same topic, it would increase their costs if they have to start verifying the veracity of memoirs–however, there will probably be a significant drop in the number of memoirs submitted if all of a sudden writers get the message that the “secret backdoor” into the publishing world has been closed, and now they have to try to sell their NOVEL along with the rest of the herd. So overall, publishers might reduce the amount of work for themselves if they instituted a fact-checking policy for all memoirs about to be published.
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
Well, actually, as the article Jonathan Lyons linked to points out (and kudos to Benwah for finding it originally) the US Court of Appeals has already ruled that publishers cannot be held liable for verifying inaccuracies in the books they publish.
Whether they SHOULD is of course a point of debate, but I doubt this will change anytime soon.
Adaora A. says
Ok, so it all has to do with the contract then. Thanks.
One of the writers for the New York Post thought A MILLION LITTLE PIECES was shifty back in ’03. Have you ever turned down books for being a little bit too ‘exciting’ or that seem too hot under the collar for it to be realistic. Do you just turn it down immediately or do you ask for proof straight away because you’re so interested? These cases always bring up so many questions.
Anonymous says
Wow this is so interesting. My first reaction was, wow why didn’t her sister call HER first? Talk about BLOOD! Whew! now there’s a story!
Personally, I am not offended if a writer for a memoir makes it up. In the movies, they say, “based on a true story.” That’s “based.”
Close enough.
If it’s a good story, it’s a good story.
And, for many compelling stories, there would be lawsuits galore based on privacy issues or, in other cases, a real threat of violence to the author if some of the real people get named.
I know a few very real people who have turned down real opportunities to get very compelling stories published if it meant the facts or names would be public.
The Tabloids write crap all the time and then retract it and do so on purpose because it SELLS. The lawsuits are just a cost of that business. But then, I am still waiting on the details of the Aliens suing over that abduction accusation…
So what is this obsession, in like how could they!! about The Truth?
Newspaper people are now, in some cases, also required to give up their sources or go to jail.
In Europe, I have friends who think Americans are so naive, expecting honesty from politicians, writers, and thieves! What’s next, is Mother Goose going to have to stand up and confess her tall tales too?
Jade says
Different people have different realities when it comes to truth. I have a friend who I’ve known since we were both about 8 years old. She hasn’t had the happiest life, and has always lived in a fantasy world – imagine my surprise after we parted ways in high school and met up again as adults, to find she’d told everyone she could find in the interim that her twin sister had died of a dreadful drug overdose when she was a teenager. Huh? She had no twin sister! No terrible drug overdose! But if she was ever to write her own memoir, that fantasy has become embedded as fact in her memory, and it will find its way onto the page. So what do you do about people who are delusional, live in fantasy worlds, or simply have terrible memories? How do you separate their fact from their fiction if they are not capable of it themselves?
Nathan Bransford says
Adaora-
My BS detection meter is always turned up to high when I’m dealing with aspiring authors (no offense), so when people make extraordinary claims, whether it’s about a sales track, reviews, their own life… I usually will do a cursory check before I’ll even request to see more.
But as far as I know I’ve never dealt with someone who was a serial liar, and so I’m still sympathetic to the editor and agent involved in the Seltzer case. It seemed like they tried, but were dealing with someone really messed up.
Melanie Lynne Hauser says
What should be done about fake memoirs? Get people to buy more fiction. That’s what should be done. (Yes, I know – if only it were that simple!)
Fiction is a hard sell, memoir isn’t nearly so tough. I’ve heard this from agents and editors for a long time now. In our reality TV-obsessed culture we’ve confused the person (or in this case, author) with the story – or, perhaps we’re just becoming a culture that doesn’t value the artistic process. It’s much easier for a publisher to position the author as part of the story, rather than just trying to sell the story. Nobody’s really figured out how to do that yet in this changed(Internet, YouTube, Facebook, Reality TV) society. But that’s another issue.
But the truth is, this author would never have gotten the press she did, had her book been a novel. So – hence the pressure, on publishers, on authors, to try to find a way to rewrite a story that might have been based on the author’s observations or maybe even some experience, as a full-fledged memoir.
Now, I’m not saying this excuses an author from blatantly lying to her editor and to her agent, as Seltzer did. I’m just trying to point out how our culture has changed – how few people seem to read or value fiction anymore – and how this unfortunate trend might have come to be.
Anonymous says
Publishers don’t have to fact check every line to be responsible for a product they market as nonfiction, but it seems they have to check major facts–most notably, the author’s identity. Did this Jones/Seltzer go to public school in the neighborhood where she says she grew up (for example)? Her social security record will note jobs held during her life, which could place her at various times. A nonprofit I may work for does a background check of all potential employees and consultants, checking last-attained degrees, criminal records, etc. P I don’t like this, but I take it they’ve got their reasons and have determined that these checks won’t bankrupt them. Paying for such a minimal effort must be better than pulping a print run and losing the faith of your customers, and if it’s still too expensive, how about reducing outlandish memoir advances and, yes, pursuing recourse against fraudulent authors. James Frey continues to reap in the bucks, doesn’t he?
Anonymous says
Oh yes, the truth certainly varies from culprit to culprit.
Non-fiction indeed!
They should have integrity like the nonfiction accounts of
Vampires, ghosts stories, haunted castles, tales of great love…
Even historians now concur that history is subjective.
My own sister, apparently, had a completely different set of parents. Same address and names. Weird!
Anonymous says
My Life is based on fiction.
Could be the first line in a great memoir!
Jay Montville says
What should be done, I think, is what is being done since the James Frey incident. If JT Leroy can convince actual people that he/she exists, well, then, I think the publisher and agent have done what they could. Likewise with this latest case – they asked for proof and got some. A memoir is not a newspaper article.
That said, it does have an impact on people buying memoirs as precie said. People buy memoirs instead of fiction because the memoir is supposed to be someone’s memory of something that actually happened. People can disagree with that memory (see, e.g., Running With Scissors), but it’s supposed to be basically true, if not True.
And a word about warranty/indemnity – while the author must agree to the clause, which, as Nathan said, protects the publisher if the author stole the work from someone else or something, it’s not a great bargain for the publisher, really, or the agent. (I know! A writer having sympathy for Big Publishing!) That’s because an author is usually…well, broke. Even an author with a decent “real job” or a hefty advance isn’t going to have the money to make the publisher or agent whole again. So the clauses do get the publisher and agent off the hook from a liability standpoint, but it’s not like Setzer is paying them back for their costs or anything. Her publisher and her agent are probably just eating those costs (not to mention their time and the hits to their reputations) and moving on.
DISCLAIMER – I haven’t seen and am not commenting on Curtis Brown’s warranty/indemnity clauses here. I haven’t seen them. But as a lawyer, I’ve seen gazillions of these things and, while they are useful, they don’t offer a lot of protection when the person signing the clause is just an individual.
Anonymous says
Sentence the author to live through the pain / horrific conditions / circumstances that they describe as factual for as long as they claimed to have lived though it – or at least until the ‘book’ is forgotten.
Katrina Stonoff says
I heard recently that James Frey has coined a new genre: “reality fiction.” Stories “based on truth” but with fictional elements added (sometimes lots of them, and whoppers!).
In theory, I like the idea of being charged with fraud if you present fiction as fact, but in practice, it’s a slippery slope. The line between “fraud” and mis-remembering is a very wide, gray space, and the potential for shutting down honest communication too risky.
I’m hoping it’ll take care of itself. I’ve nearly stopped buying and reading memoir, and the few I do buy now are rarely the bigger-than-life, unlikely stories like Frey’s. If enough people do the same, the market for “reality fiction” labeled “fact” will dry up.
Of course, I also turn the channel when Britney’s latest escapade comes on, and we know THAT isn’t typical, so there probably isn’t much hope for intelligence triumphing over celebrity worship.
Anonymous says
“…the US Court of Appeals has already ruled that publishers cannot be held liable for verifying inaccuracies in the books they publish.”
Therein lies the heart of the problem. Until that law changes, “memoirs” simply do not have to be factually accurate. End of discussion.
Adaora A. says
No offense taken. Agents have their reputations at stake too. As much as it makes me uncomfortable in regards to how aspiring authors might be viewed, I can’t help but feel sorry for her agent, and for her publisher.
She lies better then she can tell the truth. I don’t know if you can always teach an old dog new tricks.
Good to know you’re BS meter is oiled and watered.
Anonymous says
You know, it’s just not safe out there.
This is exactly why I write fiction.
To hide the truth!
But nowadays, on the Today Show, I keep seeing authors of fiction getting interviewed with questions about how their work of fiction is really a reflection of their own real life experience.
You can’t win!
Scott says
Not being particularly interested in memoir, this isn’t likely to change my book purchasing habits. It does, however, make me doubt any claim of a memoir as a true story, the same way I doubt horror movies and ghost stories that are presented as true stories. If somebody tells me something is true because it’s a memoir, I’m cynical and automatically react the way I do when somebody says that a TV movie is true because it’s “based on a true story” or that pro wrestling isn’t staged or that reality shows are real.
What should be done? Dunno. Maybe publishers and bookstores should have the right to prosecute. But I think the market is likely to correct itself. As memoirs become less trusted, publishers will be less ready to seel them and readers will be less willing to buy them (maybe, although a good story presented as true interests a reader even if it’s not true).
What is Truth anyway? There’s often more capital-T Truth in fiction than in non-fiction.
Anonymous says
Hopefully, in terms of publishing memoirs ‘a few bad apples don’t spoil a barrel’ for the book-buying public.
If an author emerges as a fake, then I say agent, editor et al should drop them like a hot potato & make sure they don’t make a bean from their efforts.
…apples, potatoes, beans – I feel, I too, may be a fraud. Clearly I am desperate to be a greengrocer & not an author.
Love visiting your blog Nathan.
Best Wishes from the UK
pjd says
“Dear Nathan,
Please consider reviewing my 78,000-word normative conjecture of having been raised by a pack of giant, blood-sucking koalas in the red-light district of San Bernadino.”
Just be warned that the interrogative form of a normative conjecture is…you guessed it: a rhetorical question.
Kalynne, I think I just fell in love with you.
terryd says
I think the time for the satirical memoir has arrived!
Anonymous says
From another blog:
I say it’s high time someone fact checked “Marley and Me.” Sure, he said the dog was unruly, a slobberpuss, and overexuberant – but how do we know it’s the truth? Maybe he made the whole thing up! But of course the dog has since passed on. How convenient. How utterly convenient…
Anonymous says
If the author did indeed get close to a $100,000 advance, I think the publisher could have afforded to pay a fact checker for, say, three days. That it was a memoir from an unknown person makes it even more critical to check out. A story this unusual needs a professional fact checker, not just a busy editor who’s developed a close personal trusting relationship with the author, albeit over the phone. Paying a fact checker (say, $15/hour x 24 hours – $360) would have been well worth it, considering the consequences and huge lost investment. Hire a fact checker!!
Tom Burchfield says
The publisher has every right to get every dime they paid that writer back and I’ll bet these “writers” will never publish again. Do these characters have any idea that they’ll be seen as untouchable damaged goods, no matter how good their writing is? A lifetime in office cubicle hell awaits them (I pray).
BTW, Nathan, did Frey actually have to pay back his publishers? I hope so.
Call me a reactionary old fart (“OK, Tom. You’re a . . . “), but I do believe strong fences make good neighbors. If it’s fiction, say so. If it’s non-fiction say so. If you’re doing historical fiction (where the author has to–must–fictionalize and speculate), again, make it clear. We owe it to our readers, the people who put down their money to buy our books. The publishers can only do so much. The author has to be the ultimate fact checker.
Believe me, I have no plans to run myself in circles claiming my vampiric characters exist for real. It’s fact. I’m making it all up!
Marva says
All memoirs should just be considered fiction. You cannot replicate conversations years later. The truth is in the eye of the beholder and everybody knows eyewitnesses suck.
If they want to say something like “based on what I recall, but my memory isn’t so hot” on the copyright page then I might believe a bit of what is written.
Paprikapink says
Personally, I think it’s a lot of fuss over not much. Memoir, schmemoir…it’s a story. Can any of us believe any of what we we say about our lives? Okay, lots of us can believe most of it. But seriously, no one really sees the truth about themselves all the time. I think even the memoirs that have never been debunked have to be assumed to include a decent amount of bunk nevertheless.
Dwight Wannabe says
James Frey may be the poster child for the fabricated memoir, but it really should be Augusten Burroughs.
Running with Scissors is a memoir like Kevin Federline is black.
Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener may even predate Running with Scissors.
I think the problem is rooted in the old Hollwood saw, “Based on a true story.” Folks know that Hollywood is going to take a few core facts and dramatize the rest, so we’ve (d)evolved to the point where the writer feels he or she has license to just go ahead and mine the fictional potential of their life story first.
What can you do about it?
In this age of “branded journalism” where people subscribe to the version of the facts they are most comfortable hearing?
Answer: Five little disclaiming words on the bottom of the front cover. Based on a True Story.
Dwight Wannabe says
Or better yet, Nathan, challenge your readers to coin the new phrase to describe a fake memoir.
“Dreamoir?”
“Memwarp?”
“Crapmoir?”
“Fauxmoir?”
“Thinmoir?”
Ah, I leave it to more creative minds than my own.
Nathan Bransford says
One funny note about “based on a true story” in movies that I didn’t realize but learned in New Yorker article is that the Coen Brothers put “based on a true story” at the beginning of Fargo even though that was completely false and they made that whole story up.
Morgan Dempsey says
My crack at an answer:
People should be taught from a young age that lying isn’t cool. Barring that, there should be some pretty hefty punishments for writers who do this – returning advances, paying publishers/agents for losses, et cetera. I don’t think the responsibility is on the publishers to have to treat everyone like a liar. People should just be honest, and if they won’t do it themselves, they should be punished.
I can bet that there’s going to be a lot more “If you’re lying about your memoir you owe us a million dollars” clauses in contracts now.
Although really, this just ruins it for everyone else. I saw a comment on a forumses that an agent was “wary about taking on memoirs at this moment.” Way to piss in the pool, guys.
There’s a section for stories people made up. It’s called “fiction.” If you’re going to tell lies for profit, be honest about it.
Also, cheer up. You live in one of the most beautiful cities on the planet and I, stuck in San Jose, envy you 🙂
Kirsten says
My two cents:
Most of these fake memoirists seem like scam artists to me. Apart from legal clauses, etc., I can’t think of a foolproof method of detecting scammers…
*Winces. Tries not to think of ex-boyfriends.*
In regard to Ishmael Beah, his story was nit-picked over the dates that something occurred. There is no doubt that he wrote about his own life, and that it’s a story worth reading. I don’t lump him in with the scammers (who should have just labeled their books fiction, damn it). He seems like a heck of a nice guy with an interesting tale to tell.
Furious D says
I don’t know what editors and publishers should do to stop fake memoirs.
I just hope they do it after publishing my memoirs of the time I single-handedly won the Vietnam War, then went on to break the sound barrier and become the first man on the moon, and winning all the Oscars in every category in 1983 while growing up a 1/2-Irish-3/4 Scottish and 1/76 Spanish in a drug infested ghetto wedged between the fjords of Saskatchewan.
Anonymous says
Obviously the publisher never raised a teenager.