Fake memoir

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Fake memoirs form a category of literary forgery in which a wholly or partially fabricated autobiography, memoir or journal of an individual is presented as fact. In some cases, the purported author of the work is also a fabrication.

Contents

In recent years, there have been a number of such memoirs published by major publishers, some that were well received critically and became best-sellers, that have subsequently proven to have been partially or completely fabricated. A number of recent fake memoirs fall into the category of "misery lit", where the authors claim to have overcome overwhelming losses (i.e. bereavement, abuse, addiction, and poverty). Several more have detailed fabricated stories of Holocaust survival, with at least one having been penned by an actual Holocaust victim.

As a result of recent best-selling memoirs having been outed for falsification, there have been calls for stronger vetting and fact checking of an author's material. [1]

Public reception

A number of fake memoirs in recent years have been published by renowned publishing houses and received critical acclaim only to be exposed as partial or complete fabrications. Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood (Binjamin Wilkomirski), The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams (Nasdijj), [2] Love and Consequences (Margaret Seltzer), [3] and Go Ask Alice (Anonymous) [4] garnered praise from The New York Times before exposed as false. Love and Consequences (Margaret Seltzer) and Odd Man Out (Matt McCarthy) were published by Penguin Group USA. A Million Little Pieces was published by Random House.

Two authors of recent fake memoirs, James Frey (A Million Little Pieces), and Herman Rosenblat (who was featured before he wrote Angel at the Fence ), as well as an imposter assuming the name Anthony Godby Johnson (A Rock and a Hard Place), appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show . All eventually had their mendacity made public, and the scheduled publication of Rosenblat's book was cancelled. Frey, accompanied by his editor Nan Talese, was confronted by Oprah during a follow-up episode. [5] The controversy over falsified memoirs inspired Andrea Troy to pen her satiric novel, Daddy – An Absolutely Authentic Fake Memoir (2008).

There is also the case of people who build up a public profile as a survivor of a disastrous event, with the intention of drawing attention and profiting from it. Some of these have achieved publishing deals with major publishers; for example, Belle Gibson had lucrative deals with Penguin and Simon & Schuster, before her story of self-cure from cancer was shown to be false.

List of fake memoirs and journals

See also

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literary forgery</span> Literary work which is either deliberately misattributed to a historical or invented author

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herman Rosenblat</span>

Herman A. Rosenblat was a Polish-born American author, known for writing a fictitious Holocaust memoir titled Angel at the Fence, purporting to tell the true story of a girl who passed him food through the barbed-wire fence at the Schlieben sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in World War II. The book was planned to be published in 2009 by Berkley Books, but was cancelled after it turned out that many elements of his memoir were fabricated and some were contrary to verifiable historical facts. Rosenblat later admitted to lying on purpose with the intention of bringing joy.

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Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds is a 2012 memoir by Ping Fu, with co-author MeiMei Fox. The book tells stories from Fu's life, starting with her childhood in China at the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, and continuing through her role as co-founder and CEO of Geomagic, a 3D graphics software development company in the United States. The book was first published in English on December 31, 2012 through Portfolio Hardcover.

Leonore Carol "Lee" Israel was an American author known for committing literary forgery. Her 2008 confessional autobiography Can You Ever Forgive Me? was adapted into the 2018 film of the same name starring Melissa McCarthy as Israel.

Donald Joseph Watt was an Australian Army soldier and the author of a literary hoax, a fictitious Holocaust memoir entitled Stoker: The Story of an Australian Soldier who Survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, published in 1995 by Simon & Schuster. Only the disclosure of Watt's fabrications altered the status of the book which was initially praised by various Jewish organizations as the most important work written in Australia.

<i>Hannah: From Dachau to the Olympics and Beyond</i>

Hannah: From Dachau to the Olympics and Beyond is a Holocaust biography written by Jean Goodwin Messinger about Hannah Pence. The book gained notoriety when it was revealed that the entire story had been fabricated by Pence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliotheca Fictiva Collection</span>

The Bibliotheca Fictiva Collection of Literary and Historical Forgery is the premier library collection in the world that is dedicated entirely to the subject of textual fakery and imposture. The collection totals nearly two thousand rare books and manuscripts and is kept at the Special Collections Department of Johns Hopkins University’s The Sheridan Libraries.

References

  1. ↑ "Lies and Consequences: Tracking the Fallout of (Another) Literary Fraud", The New York Times, 2008-03-05, p. B1. See also "A Family Tree of Literary Fakers," The New York Times, 2008-03-08, p. A17.
  2. ↑ Nasdijj (5 March 2009). "The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping ,Nasdijj, 9780345453891 - Powell's Books".
  3. ↑ Barnes & Noble. "Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival". Barnes & Noble. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 12 February 2010.
  4. ↑ Schott, Webster (7 May 1972). "Childrens Books". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  5. ↑ Carr, David (30 January 2006). "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
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