As you have probably heard, another writer was nabbed for making up the story of her latest non-fiction book. Margaret B. Jones was getting rave reviews for her book “Love and Consequences.” It was the story of how the half-white, half Native American girl grew up on the mean streets of South-Central Los Angeles. A foster child, she was forced by the Bloods to run drugs when her foster brothers, Terrell and Taye joined the gang.
There was only one problem…none of it was true. Margaret, whose real name is Margaret Seltzer, was ratted out by her older sister, Cyndi, after she saw an article in the New York Times with Margaret and her 8-year-old daughter. Cyndi contacted Margaret’s publisher to say the story was rubbish. As it turns out, Margaret actually had a privileged upbringing, living in Sherman Oaks with her biological family and attending a private high school.
Oops.
Riverhead Books, who published “Love and Consequences” has recalled all the copies. They also cancelled Margaret’s book tour, which was due to start this week.
However, Margaret is just one of many novelists lately who have been fudging their stories. Misha Defonseca admitted her Holocaust memoir “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years” was bogus. Misha claimed in her book to have traveled alone through Europe (after her parents were deported), sneaking into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto, and even lived in the forest with wolves to survive. As it turns out, Misha was living with her grandparents in Belgium during the war (after her parents were executed for being resistance fighters). And, she isn’t even Jewish, as she said in her memoir.
Why would someone lie about something like this? Margaret said, “For whatever reason, I was really torn and I thought it was my opportunity to put a voice to people who people don’t listen to.” Misha said, “I find it difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner world. The story in the book is mine. It is not the actual reality—it was my reality, my way of surviving. I ask forgiveness from all those who feel betrayed.” Some people feel that reality is what sells now and that forces writers to make up fictitious stories and sell them as reality.
Of course, neither Margaret nor Misha are the first writers to do this. James Frey got fried after going on Oprah, then later admitting that certain parts of his memoir “A Million Little Pieces” were fabricated. It turned out that JT LeRoy was not a transgender guy from West Virginia who was forced into prostitution and drug addiction as a child, but rather a forty something year old white woman, Laura Albert, from Brooklyn.
So next time you pick up that novel that got great reviews, just remember that what you are reading may only be true in the mind of the novelist.
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