It seems like just yesterday that A Million Little Pieces, the fabricated alcohol- and drug-addiction memoir of James Frey, made headlines. Mostly because Frey got sucker-punched into confessing his fictionalization on Oprah!, which was followed by a “South Park” parody.
Fast-forward two years. This week there are two more “nonfiction” memoirs biting the dust. Here’s Bachelorette Number One, courtesy of the International Herald Tribune:
In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South Central Los Angeles as a foster child who ran drugs for members of the Bloods, an infamous gang. The author’s biography on the back flap says she graduated from the University of Oregon.
The problem is that none of that is true.
Jones, a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, actually is all white and grew up in Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley of California, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in North Hollywood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. She is still a few credits short of a diploma from University of Oregon.
Riverhead Books, the unit of Penguin Group USA that published “Love and Consequences,” is recalling all copies of the book and has canceled Seltzer’s book tour …
Seltzer’s story started unraveling last Thursday after she was profiled in the House & Home section of The New York Times. The article appeared alongside a photograph of Seltzer (still using her pseudonym) and her 8-year-old daughter, Rya. Seltzer’s older sister, Cynthia Seltzer Hoffman, saw the piece and called Riverhead to tell them that Seltzer’s story was untrue.
And then there’s Bachelorette Number Two, thanks to the diligence of Slate, New York magazine, and an independent blogger with way too much time on her hands (i.e., the best kind of blogger…). Quoth New York:
Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years [was] a 1997 book by Misha Defonseca, in which the author — who grew up in Belgium during World War II — claimed that she fled Brussels at the age of 7 and lived with wolves in the forests of Europe for months. Oh, and also she claimed she sneaked into — and out of — the Warsaw ghetto and killed a Nazi who tried to rape her. Despite all these hilariously implausible details, Defonseca maintained that her story was true, even as it sold tens of thousands of copies in Europe…
In the end, it was a movie that brought the spotlight onto the unlikelihood of Defonseca’s story. Survivre Avec les Loups was released last month in France, and the film’s claims … caused researchers to investigate Defonseca’s histoire vraie. Turns out that not only did she not live in the woods with wolves for months, she’s not even Jewish, although her parents, resistance fighters, were killed by the Nazis. Even someone whose French petered out in high school, though, will watch the trailer and say, “Duh.” This story is the fakiest fake we’ve ever heard. Didn’t anyone at any of those European publishers, or the French film company, scratch his head, even for a second?
Apparently not. And why should we be surprised? After all, New York City is still the dead-tree publishing hub of the universe, and it was Big Apple publishers that brought us such autobiographical gems as Jimmy Carter’s “Why Not the Best?” along with Jane Fonda’s apocryphal “My Life So far.” Bonus points go to UK comedian Rik Mayall, just for pushing the envelope with his memoir “Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ.”
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“sucker punched” is a great way to describe what happened then
What a shame that the Rosenblats lied about their story. I wish Oprah would publicize only checked-out true stories from now on forward.
I read about a genuine Holocaust love story in the NY Times recently and it’s better than the Rosenblats anyway. Stan Lee and Neal Adams the famous comic book artists were publicizing the story of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt. I checked and I’m surprised there’s no book on this yet. It’s a great story! It also appears to be all true, thankfully.
Dina Gottliebova Babbitt who was a 19 year old art student at Auschwitz. There she painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the wall of the children’s barracks to cheer them up. Dina’s art became her salvation and helped her find true love!
Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death, found out about the mural Dina painted and called for her. She thought she was going to be gassed, but she bravely stood up to Mengele and he decided to make her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber.
After the war, Dina interviewed for a job as an animator based on the art she did in Auschwitz and the person interviewing her turned out to be the man who created Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs for the movie. They fell in love and got married. Show White saved Dina’s life twice! I love this story!