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SAN JUAN ISLAND LIBRARY |
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Literary Hoaxes
We have all experienced at one time or another how a powerful memoir can shed light on a new world. One in which we have had no personal experience, but one that touches everyone in our society. These types of memoirs affect us on multiple intellectual and emotional levels. They give us an empathy and understanding that we didn’t feel before for a neighbor, a friend, even a family member. Like the recent gritty memoir, Love and Consequences by Margaret Seltzer (under the pseudonym Margaret B. Jones), showing what it is like growing up half-white, half-Native American in foster care in gang ruled South-Central L.A.. The problem is it’s a fake. As revealed two weeks ago Seltzer is all white, grew up in San Fernando Valley with her birth family, and attended a private Episcopalian school. But honestly literary fakes are nothing new. This has a history that stretches back to slave narratives written by white abolitionists. In fact, I’m sure it stretches back a lot farther than that. So why do they do it? Surely they must know someone is going to expose them at some point. In the case of Seltzer it was her sister. In other cases it is old friends or acquaintances. Is it the rush of getting away with something big? The money? Is it that these stories wouldn’t have as strong of an impact if they were sold as fiction? I certainly don’t know, but I do know we haven’t seen the last of them. A few well-known literary fakers include: Misha Defonseca: Defonseca’s memoir, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, details her childhood in Europe spent hiding from the Nazis and searching for her deported parents including episodes of living with wolves and killing a German solider in self defense. Published in 1997 this book became an instant success, translated into 18 languages and adapted into a film in France. However Defonseca recently confessed that the memoir was in fact fabricated. Her family was Catholic, not Jewish as stated, and her parents were killed by the Nazis for resistance activities. Clifford Irving: Irving sold an authorized autobiography of Howard Hughes in 1972 for a nice advance. His fraud came to light when Hughes finally contacted the outside world and the advance was discovered to have been deposited by Irving’s wife in a Swiss bank account. After serving time in jail Irving continued to write several novels and to finally publish his work on Howard Hughes. Irving tells this story in his work The Hoax and it is portrayed in the more recent movie of the same name starring Richard Gere (of which Irving refers to as a hoax and not based on his true story at all). James Frey: Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces, chronicling his drug and alcohol treatment became an undisputed bestseller when it was selected by Oprah for her book club in 2005. However it was exposed that he had highly exaggerated much in his work to the point where he was deemed a fraud. Although he had been an addict and underwent treatment, that wasn’t enough to reconcile with his work or the public. After much controversy and media attention Frey issued a "note to the reader" for inclusion in all future editions. The publisher also reached a lawsuit settlement refunding the purchase price of the book to readers who felt defrauded. Frey continues to write and his latest work is due for release in May. Asa Earl Carter: Carter originally published his work, The Education of Little Tree, as a memoir in 1976 under the pseudonym Forrest Carter. This memoir depicts the life of a young boy growing up with his Cherokee grandparents in the 1930s. However it later came out that the story was not based on Carter’s life, facts of Cherokee culture or language are incorrect, and the author himself was a past member and leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Since the fraud was made public copies have continued to sell, schools use it as assigned reading, it has been adapted into a movie, and the actual fraud is almost all but forgotten by many.
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