Do you believe me?

Janet, do your ever tell stories about yourself? Do you ever exaggerate a bit or combine some aspects to make the story easier to tell? I bet you did--I know I have. I think most people are smart enough to know that about people. What about authors of autobiographies? How much slack should we give them? Oprah didn’t give much to James Frey, author of the book A Million Little Pieces in 2006. Apparently his “true-life” story about drug and alcohol addiction recovery had some events that were not entirely accurate. Publisher Random House stood behind the author in a lawsuit and new copies of the book have a disclaimer. Our copy of the book has the letter from the publisher right in the front of the book and the genre “Biographical Fiction” is used to describe this book in our catalog.

There are recent controversies about the “memoirs” of a holocaust survivor and a totally fabricated story about a South-Central LA foster child who succeeds despite overwhelming odds. The author of the second book “Margaret B. Jones” is really Margaret Seltzer who made up her life, ethnicity and background --portrayed as a true account in this book. The story received rave reviews in the New York Times, and interviews all over the country including NPR were lined up for the publicity launch. Instead, after the author’s sister recognized her in an article and called the publisher to say they’d been duped—the publisher pulled all copies of the books of the shelves.

Why did the author have to say it was a true story about themselves rather than a novel? The vastly successful Memoirs of a Geisha was written by an American white male. Some insight may come from psychologists rather than literary critics. I listened to several stories on NPR and there’s a long history of this according to Laura Browder author of Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identities. Of course, our job as librarians is to stay on top of these issues to help spread the word—but Ms. Browder noted in her NPR interview that it’s unusual for books to be pulled off the shelves for deception—there’s usually a firestorm of publicity and then things return to normal. So Janet, you can’t always believe what you read—even if it’s on the Chester Fritz Library shelves.