{"id":16,"date":"2008-03-06T11:49:10","date_gmt":"2008-03-06T16:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=16"},"modified":"2013-03-25T20:15:50","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T00:15:50","slug":"if-i-were-write-fake-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/if-i-were-write-fake-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Were to Write a Fake Memoir,"},"content":{"rendered":"

What would it be? I don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n

But I wonder at the audacity of the people who try to pull off these literary frauds these days. Although I doubt the latest perpetrator (Margaret Seltzer, writing as Margaret B. Jones) thought her sister was going to turn her in.<\/p>\n

It probably wouldn\u2019t be such big news if it weren\u2019t for the endorsement the book got from O Magazine<\/em>, as reported in \u201cOprah’s mag gushed over memoir of fake gangbanger,\u201d<\/a> by Larry McShane of the NY Daily News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A second memoir hailed by Oprah Winfrey’s media empire was exposed as a fraud when author Margaret B. Jones – who claimed to be a biracial gang-banger – was revealed as Margaret Seltzer, a well-to-do San Fernando Valley girl. <\/p>\n

Love and Consequences<\/em> was published last week to generally rave reviews – and on her MySpace page, Jones\/Seltzer trumpeted the plug from O, The Oprah Magazine. <\/p>\n

Publisher Riverhead Books was forced to recall 19,000 copies of the book yesterday after Seltzer admitted her gripping tale of running drugs for a South Central Los Angeles gang was a work of fiction. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nMaybe I should market the lunar colony novel I\u2019m trying to write as a memoir … no, I guess that wouldn\u2019t work, would it?<\/p>\n

The article noted that Seltzer\u2019s book “was the second memoir revealed as a hoax in the past week,” the first being Misha Defonseca\u2019s 1997 Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years<\/em>. Ms. Seltzer\u2019s sister reportedly contacted The New York Times<\/em> and told them of her sister\u2019s fakery, which “included bogus photos, letters and even fake foster siblings, whom she produced to verify her story.” <\/p>\n

But catch the way the story ends:<\/p>\n

“One cannot protect oneself 100% from a dedicated hoaxster any more than one can protect oneself 100% from a dedicated terrorist,” said Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nMs. Nelson\u2019s statement may be arguably true, but her analogy is a poor choice. A literary “hoaxster” (hoaxist?) really doesn\u2019t equate to a terrorist, in morality, intent, or effect.<\/p>\n

Now, off to work on my fake memoir … er, novel.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would it be? I don\u2019t know. But I wonder at the audacity of the people who try to pull off these literary frauds these days. Although I doubt the latest perpetrator (Margaret Seltzer, writing as Margaret B. Jones) thought her sister was going to turn her in. It probably \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[387],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1416,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}