When I was a kid one of the commercials on TV that always freaked me out a little bit was the Chiffon margarine commercial that always ended with “Mother Nature” saying, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”
First the NY Times and now Gawker’s Ryan Tate “Lying Author is Like James Frey but Only Sadder reveals yet another memoirist who completely fabricated her entire story and then was ratted out by her older sister (Note to self: send my own 3 sisters box of chocolates this week), I can now say, “It’s not nice to fool with book lovers.”
And before you’re quick to judge the publishing houses that buy these books keep in mind that they are helmed by extraordinary editors who do everything they can sans a lie detector test to vett the content of books.
This is my favorite quote from the Times story from Seltzer, “I would talk to kids who were Black Panthers, and kids who were gang members, and kids who were not gang members.” (She did all this by the way while sitting at a Starbucks writing her book.)
Ms. Seltzer told The Times last week, “One of the first things I did once I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot.” Or maybe she just bought a larger latte, because she could afford them with the drug money.
My advice is if you’re writing a memoir, make it the truth. Don’t say you lived with wolves if you haven’t, don’t say you ran drugs and hung out with Black Panther kids (as Margaret Seltzer called them) if you haven’t and by all means, don’t try to make excuses for it if you get caught. A lie is a lie is a lie.
Now I have to go back to my memoir, “I’ll Take the Husband and Two Kids with A Vagina on the Side to Go,” – let’s see I have a husband, I have two kids, and so on, so I think I’m safe!
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
