Margaret Jones, Margaret Seltzer: let me tell you what i really think
Many colleagues and friends have asked what my thoughts are on the lying sociopath who felt it necessary to craft a novel and call it a memoir. I want to thank Margaret Jones, Margaret Seltzer, or whatever your name is today for paving the way for me to answer insipid questions such as: What do you think of people who fake memoirs? Did you make up any of your story? Given the high profiles of authors such as James Frey and others, how important was it for you to present the truth in your story? Pause. Are you kidding me? Seriously? I wish I made up the events in my life - I would have saved myself from the thousands of dollars in student loan debt which I used to fund my drug/alcohol addiction, I would have saved years and another pile of money in therapy bills, counseling sessions and visits to my doctor to see if I need to be on various meds. I would have probably been in a stable relationship by now. I might even have children. I might be more secure in my identity. I might even pick up the phone and call my mother about the bad day, week, year, I’m having and she would purr into the phone and I’d come home and be swallowed up in her arms, lost in the thicket of her hair. If only.
So what do I think about a climate where a book I write is held up to scrutiny because attention whores, pathological liars, money and fame obsessed authors (money, fame, author - these words in one sentence. how odd it reads!) or raving sociopaths (did she honestly think she wouldn’t be found out?!) - I’m downright frustrated. I’m concerned that writers rationalize lying to their readers simply to capitalize on a society’s need for access and their own desire for success, and it’s disconcerting that publishers are eager to flood the marketplace without a basic gut-check (does this seem real to me on the page? does the writer’s story check out? should we get legal involved? or do I not care because I have numbers to make, books to catalog, a sales force waiting for the next Eat, Pray, Love). That a few proverbial rotten apples taint an otherwise viable genre filled with talented writers who want to celebrate overcoming a traumatic experience and craft that experience into art. Writers who don’t make shit up. The fake memoirists give fodder for snobbish novelists who already turn up their noses at the genre because the novel, the novel (emphasis, will you please), is the only pure and honest thing one can write. The fake memoirists make my job that much more difficult because we now live in a climate of gulity until proven innocent.
That’s what I think.
Update: Rachel has some astute thoughts on the subject.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Wow, very well written. I am awaiting your book right now to read. Can’t wait!
March 6th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Sing it, sister. Amen.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
wow, that is really unbelievable. i read the NYT interview with her last week, and on reflection i have to say that some of her lines rang hollow then: “when i started selling drugs the first thing i did was go and buy a burial plot…” and the names and details in her family… unbelievable that someone could go that far.
yeah, you’re right about the guilty until proven innocent thing, that goes without saying in the world of controversial nonfiction. last month i just half-killed myself looking up and citing 25 pages of notes for my book food fray: the global politics of genetically modified food. i guess it’s come to the point where we need to do that with writers like jones/selzer too, sigh.
keep on telling your story, truth will prevail and truth will heal.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
“That a few proverbial rotten apples taint an otherwise viable genre filled with talented writers who want to celebrate overcoming a traumatic experience and craft that experience into art.”
Drama whores… I hate them. People who think it must be glamorous and ’special’ to have ‘problems’ to overcome. They need to create their own problems to create their own fame (no matter how insignificant)
Thankyouverymuch, but I’d love to trade their opportunity to choose their level of irrationality for my true reality.
Life would be much more ‘fun’ if I could choose instead of deal with life throws at me on a whim…
March 6th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Damn, Felicia…I thought of you when I read about the lying “memoirist”. Felt bad for you because I know that people will question you. Don’t you worry about it, your book is so real, you can feel when you read it that it’s all true.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:45 am
[…] uthors, “Did you make up any of your story?” Felicia Sullivan, memoir writer, replies, […]
March 7th, 2008 at 10:08 am
These people really do make me sick. I just don’t understand the thought process that goes into faking a memoir. Especially in this day and age when the resources at the average person’s fingertips can easily prove your story false. So you risk everything, your credibility, your livelihood, and any future career you may have had as a writer to churn out a book full of lies. Why? Short lived fame? Money? is either of those really worth it?
March 8th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I completely agree with all of you!!!
At the heart of it, I still simply don’t understand why someone would make up such horrific events – ultimately, it reduces (and ridicules) the experiences of people who actually had to endure such events. In general, I fear the worst: that memoir will turn into reality television of the word. The reason why I read Nick Flynn, Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion and Paula Fox before writing my book was because I felt that not only was it important to talk about my story, but it’s also critical to elevate the work to that of art. I want people to be able to pick up my book years from now (I doubt it because it’ll probably be out of print, but one can dream) and feel that it resonates, still.
xoxox, f.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Thank you for this, we memoirists need all the GOOD press we can get! WTF with fake memoirs?? That’s despicable.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Oh, now I’m DOUBLE pissed! She lives in Eugene, Oregon, my hometown, and she’s giving IT a bad name, too! HAAAATTTTEEEE her!
March 13th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I dislike the trend of people writing fictional biographies, but I have to wonder if it’s a product of this age where we hide behind digital masks on the internet and no one knows who we “really” are.
I read your book recently, and I found all of it very genuine, and I never wondered if you were making things up. I’m looking forward to reading more of your work.