Fictional Nonfiction
On a writer’s board I belong to, journalists are buzzing about the latest scandal to hit the memoir-writing industry, the story of Margaret Seltzer a/k/a Margaret B. Jones, who wrote a book about her foster childhood in south central LA running drugs for a gang. Minor little detail: Margaret was raised by her biological family in a comfortable LA suburb, attended private schools, and probably wouldn’t know a gang hand symbol if it slapped her upside her pageboy. Her older sister, bless her soul, blew the lid on her sister’s tale.
I’ve gotten to the point where when I read a memoir, I do so with a willing suspension of disbelief. Sad, isn’t it? Last year I read a memoir that was not only poorly written, but so unbelievable and filled with stuff I knew could be relatively easy to factcheck, I was sorely tempted to invest the time to do so. I’m curious: have any of you Renegade readers picked up a memoir recently and thought, “No way can this stuff be true” or “I wonder if this story has been factchecked”? I’m thinking it would be interesting to put my sleuthing skills to work and start some kind of blog where I look at these books, do some basic factchecking that obviously publishers aren’t doing, and see what happens. [db]
If you liked that post, you might also like:
Mar 5, 2008 Personal yammerings, Rants
This is such a disheartening development, because it makes it that much harder for folks with real stories to tell, stories that could be fascinating and insightful and TRUE, to get out there. Publishing is such a difficult field to break into, and these cheaters are making it even more so. Urgh!
It’s interesting how the issue of the fictionalization of memoirs has just exploded. Back in my college days (okay, so it was only five years ago), I used to just eat up all those narrative/creative nonfiction classes, and our discussions on the reliability (or unreliability) of memory as it pertained to writing personal essays were just so fascinating. Fabricating entirely different histories, however, is something else entirely. Perhaps a commentary on how, exactly, history is created?
Well, that and a down and dirty trick on all us readers.
I have always liked–though do not practice–the cynical journalistic quip: “Too good to check.”
As to your question, two books come to mind…Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Both are good reads but I have a very hard time fathoming that everything in Running With Scissors is true….I tend to think Glass Castles (and if so, wow, what a childhood she had) could be true but in this day and age, who knows. I blame publishers for this…things that are not true should not be published in a memoir. Call it something else or at least admit to creative license, like in the movies where they say ‘based on a true story…’
I agree that it’s becoming difficult to trust memoirs today, which is terribly sad. When cases like these come to light, I am amazed that the author simply did not turn her story into a novel – autobiographical fiction is perfectly respectable and still gives the author lots of chances to reach readers.
Writing Hermit,
There was some commentary about this very thing on NPR over the weekend. Scott Simon, the commentator, remarked that (and I’m paraphrasing) the same words written in a novel would have come off as trite and implausible, but that in memoir form it’s gritty. His thesis seems to be that the memoir is being used by authors who may not have the chops to become novelists to see their work in print. Here is a link to the audio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88008140
“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
- from one of my favorite editors.
I, too, have wondered about Burroughs’ work. I love Magical Thinking, but if it’s all true, I’d be very surprised. And it’s not just full memoirs … I come across a lot of little details in first-person magazine stories that I have a hard time believing.
And speaking of good lines from editors … when I worked at a newspaper and we’d get a great tip that didn’t check out, my editor would shake his head and say, “Another good story ruined by the facts.”