SHARE THIS SHOW:

RELATED CONVERSATIONS:

RECENTLY ON TOL:

TOL Our Town

TAGS:

Memoir Nation

AIR DATE: Friday, March 7th 2008

Download the mp3 for this show.

When faked memoirs have burned us over and over, why do we keep coming back for more?

We read the story in yesterday's New York Times about Margaret Jones, aka Margaret Seltzer, the gangbanging fabulist, with more than just passing interest. Because she wasn't simply the last in a parade of disgraced memorists (remember James Frey and J. T. Leroy and, just last week, Holocaust "survivor" Misha Defonseca?). She was also nearly a guest on this show.

Seltzer was actually booked as our main guest for Monday's gang show until we got a call from her publicist on Friday afternoon telling us that she would have to cancel the interview for "personal reasons." We were frustrated at the time, but in retrospect being exposed -- by your sister! -- as having invented a memoir out of thin air does seem like a great excuse for not being interviewed about that memoir. (Of course, Jones/Seltzer wasn't above being interviewed in character before the news broke. There but for the grace of the news cycle went we.)

Why do these stories keep coming? Meager fact-checking -- by publishers, editors and, yes, radio shows -- is one obvious piece. But another tack was suggested by Nix in the Philippines, who wrote on the NYT Reader's Comments section:

Over and over again we ask "If the story was so good, why didn't she just sell it as fiction?"

Because fiction--honest fiction, stories that could have happened, to people who might have been, and all the truths, or observations, that can therefore be conveyed therein--doesn't sell. People want "real people" to put themselves on display for entertainment, rather than be confronted by imaginary visions that challenge them to understand. It is endemic throughout the culture today.

What can fiction offer that memoir can't? And vice versa? Why do we crave "based on a true story" books and movies and TV shows (and radio show appearances) over those made up out of whole cloth? Has it always been that way, or has the ascendance of memoir come at the expense of fiction?

Are you a memoirist -- published or hopeful? How have you navigated questions of exaggeration and authenticity, conflation and precision? Or are you a memoir reader? Is it time to pick up novels again?

GUESTS:

• David Weich: Director of Marketing and Development for Powell's Books
• Stacy Bolt: Blogger at These Things Happen
• Lee Montgomery: Editorial Director of Tin House Books and author of The Things Between Us

Tagged as: fiction · hoax · memoir

As a top-selling memoir writer, I am appalled by the deceptions being perpetrated. My first memoir was based on my gender change. I believe my second memoir will also be a best-seller, based on my species change. My motto will be Bob- He's the real ape-man; He's no Cheeta! I also don't do interviews with-out remuneration, although bananas are fair lucre. ungawa, bob

kalimi — Thu March 6th 8:36p.m.

I have written a memoir; no publisher found yet but their questions in query letters are always the same: CAN YOU PROVE THIS? The memoir deals with homelessness where there are no bank/rent/utility records to prove where I was and the validation of friends/colleagues is not verifiable. It is a frustrating struggle. The industry was bitten by James Frey and more examples of exaggerated memoirs (or, in this case, blatant fraud) makes it difficult for authors.

That said, memoirs sell well. Dave Eggers' HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS won a Pulitzer and was excessive in the details added, so much so that he printed the phone numbers of friends in the first few editions. Nick Flynn's memoir ANOTHER BULLSHIT NIGHT IN SUCK CITY included patent numbers/diagrams of his grandfather's inventions and, even when he strayed from the truth (writing in a play format with four Goodwill bell-ringing Santa Claus bums conversing) he let the reader know it was a deviation from truth.

In this discussion, it is my hope that you do not forget to mention authors like Hemingway, Bukowski, Fante, Celine, Hamsun and Fallada who became cult icons by creating alternative characters/names (Ernest Hemingway: Nick Adams, Charles Bukowski: Henry Chinaski, John Fante: Arturo Bandini, Louis Ferdinand Celine: Bardamu, Knut Hamsun: a series of nonexistent names, Hans Fallada: nameless first-person narrative) to tell their life stories through without being accused of the inevitable fabrication each used to enhance the story. It is this honest portrayal of autobiographical lying that made these authors worth reading and acknowledged. It would be a healthy change if today's authors adopted this established form of self-embelishment.

-c.vance

c.vance — Thu March 6th 8:41p.m.

Part of the problem is believability. In the case of the pseudo-memoirs of both James Frey and Margaret Seltzer, the tag of "memoir" permitted the reader to disregard any skepticism at just how unlikely some of the scenarios were--i.e., that a root canal would be performed without anesthetic in the opening chapters of "A Million Little Pieces", or that a white foster child would be placed with a black family in an almost completely black community in "Love and Consequences". What makes these stories compelling _is_ their supposed truthfulness, that such difficult circumstances were faced by a real person who has survived to share their story. Seltzer's publisher told the NYT that she believed the work could have been a successful piece of fiction, but the very premise of the book, the white child in South Central, would likely have been labeled as too far-fetched to be convincing.

We're riveted by stories of suffering and survival, and the attendant media for these much-hyped memoirs feeds our desire to learn more about the REAL author, the REAL sufferer. Hence James Frey appears on Oprah and receives her Book Club nod, and Jones, the reformed gang-banger, opens up her quiet Oregon life to the House and Home section of the NYT. All of this ancillary marketing adds up to a publicity blitz that is almost never present for a work of fiction, except for new work by long-time luminaries. Perhaps Seltzer could have published her work as fiction, but certainly we wouldn't recognize her face or her voice or her house or her child as we now do, thanks to the onslaught of print and radio attention she received.

Fiction tries to avoid the trite and the feel-good; the hackneyed and the unbelievable. I think we could apply these adjectives to much of the ideas in Frey's and Seltzer's work; we forgive them this (as well as unbearable prose, in Frey's case) because if the trite is _true_, how can we impugn it? Instead we feel empathy and amazement; the memoirs allow us to bask in the idea of redemption. In some way, our empathy is not advanced enough to get this emotional pay-off through fiction, or perhaps there is too little fiction vivid enough to provide this emotional release. What's interesting to inspect is why we have this urge to be amazed and awed by genuine human fortitude . . . and the way in which it allows us to stomach such fishy tales.

avisabstrusa — Fri March 7th 12:38a.m.

I am the author of Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art, which is used in creative writing programs across the US, and of Lifesaving: A Memoir, winner of the 2000 Lambda Book Award. I teach literary memoir at many universities and am on the faculty of the new low-residency MFA program at the University of Alaska. In my classes, students inevitably have worries about the accuracy of their memories. I believe that memoir is "the story of your memory" and as such is more forgiving of inaccuracies than is journalism or, say, a nonfiction article in the New Yorker, which is famous for its fact checking. But there is a huge difference between the slipperiness and changeability of memory over time, and outright and deliberate deception. Current research into the brain, shows that memories change over time, and common experience shows that no two people in a family will remember an event in exactly the same way. But what a reader of memoir needs to trust is that the writer is struggling to recapture events and make sense of them honestly. There are a few bad apples who set out deliberately to deceive the reader. These cases get an inordinate amount of publicity and readers are outraged. Perhaps the degree of outrage matches the degree to which readers of memoir want to trust the writer - want to feel intimately addressed about real life experience: after all, most of us have little time to share in that way in our present-day lives, so memoirs are called upon to fulfill that human need. When the reader feels betrayed, the outrage and attention far outweighs the notice given to the many honest, well-written memoirs which are treasured by many.

I am currently at a writers' retreat (Soapstone) in the Oregon coast range. 503 368 7458.

Judith Barrington — Fri March 7th 11:31a.m.

What's the difference between calling your book a memoir and calling it an autobiography? It's that a memoir does not have to be strictly "factual," you can embelish episodes of your life. But at what point does embelishment cross the line? I agree that a memoir where none of the facts are true no longer deserves to be called a memoir, but this is a slippery slope.

Shannon44 — Fri March 7th 11:58a.m.

It would interesting to compare these new memoirs to "bio-mythographies", like Audre Lorde's "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name" (1982). I believe Lorde coined the term, which she refers to as a ficitional memoir.

stargazerlily — Fri March 7th 12:17p.m.

Just now, the announcer pointed out that a caller's citation of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was innaccurate, as it is not a memoir. I think it is interesting to note that the caller treated that book as important, whether it was truthful or not.

Was Margaret Jones/Seltzer's novel only picked up by a publisher because it was a "Shocking" "real-life" (and multicultural) story which would appeal to the largely white reading public? The egg should be on the publisher's face not only for failing to fact check but also for seeking out authors for their niche appeal instead of their quality.

JoelBarker — Fri March 7th 12:28p.m.

This interest in memoirs might tie in with the current state of American culture in general: The success of reality TV. A fascination with anything allegedly authentic, like the return to comfort or simple food. Carhartt. Sport Utility Vehicles. Americans like to think they are cowboys, keep-in it real. George Bush. Even things that might not seem to fit but do - like Hip-hop and its street cred appeal.

On the other hand fiction might seem high-brow in this type of foolish climate.

scottmil — Fri March 7th 12:30p.m.

for me, memoirs are one of the most profound ways to connect to other human beings. they are a vehicle to share experiences that would otherwise go untold. by reading a story someone else is telling, it is possible to connect to someone you don't even know on a very deep level. specifically, i find memoirs written by people who have suffered unbelievable atrocities to be very compelling and important. some brilliant examples that come to mind... zlata's diary by zlata filipovic (war in sarajevo experienced through the eyes of a young girl), stolen lives; twenty years in a desert jail by malika oufkir (her family suffered & survived 20 years in prison in morocco), Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai (woman who survived torturous chinese cultural revolution). to think that such a memoir could be faked would be painful. i would feel cheated and it would decrease my trust in humanity.

jenowino — Fri March 7th 12:53p.m.

Yes, the publishers are certainly to blame for presenting a memoir that has not been fact-checked. But I also want to toss some blame toward the reading public, whose dependence upon the "this really happened!" factor in what they read drives this type of deception and greed. The publishing industry should deal with this string of scandals by making systematic changes, but this should also lead all of us to examine the decline of reading skills in America. This demand for "true" stories is a symptom of a decline in readers' sophistication. The reading public isn't interested in doing the work of closely examining a complex work of fiction and transfer its portent over to "real life." A true story doesn't require the reader to justify its existence--it happened, and therefore earned its place in the world.

We are predisposed to believe and respond to nonfiction, which can obscure our view of the quality of the writing. When a caller said she connected with work written by survivors of abuse but not work written by outsiders, I believe she carries a strong sense of identity to her reading that puts up a wall with the "outsiders." I doubt her reading would pass a blind test.

vandorenw — Fri March 7th 1:19p.m.

Being an English major with a literature minor as one of my degrees, I find it fascinating that the opiner's on this thread found a place in their make believe world to make a comment - thanks for being there to set us all straight and remember that brevity and succinctness goes farther than bloviating...

Given a second chance on life, why would someone that is published to any degree make a comment on this local thread unless they are trying to convince the masses? I would be willing to read your writing if you are for real; OK???

farmerziffel — Tue March 11th 5:17a.m.

Comments are now closed.