Books Memoirs and the Lying Liars Who Write Them
posted by on March 4 at 17:21 PM
Geoffrey Kloske, publisher of Riverhead Books, tells the New York Times that there was “nothing else that he or Sarah McGrath, the book’s editor, could have done to prevent the author from lying.” Here’s what they did do…
Despite editing the book in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding James Frey, author of a best-selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” who admitted making up or exaggerating details in his account of drug addiction and recovery, Ms. McGrath said she did not independently check parts of Ms. Seltzer’s story or perform any kind of background check. She said she relied on Ms. Seltzer to tell the truth.“In the post-James Frey world, we all are more careful,” Ms. McGrath said. “I had numerous conversations with her about the need to be honest and the need to stick to the facts.”
Uh… gee. McGrath knew the authors real name, and the author claimed to have been in the foster care system, in trouble with the law, a university graduate—all things that 1. weren’t true and 2. are pretty easy to check out. The New York Times, of course, published a piece on Seltzer last week—and they didn’t check out her story either. Why not?
Tom de Kay, editor of the House & Home section, said he asked Ms. Read to track down other people from Ms. Seltzer’s past to corroborate her story. Because Ms. Seltzer told Ms. Read that her foster siblings were dead, in prison or no longer in touch, it was difficult for Ms. Read to find people to interview.Mr. de Kay said that ultimately, “I was to some degree trusting that the vetting process of a reputable book publisher was going to catch this level of duplicity.” But, he added: “Do I wish in retrospect that we had called L.A. child services and tried to run down the history of this person? I certainly do.”
Do you have Sarah McGrath's phone number? I have a few ideas I'd like to pitch to her. She seems, uh, gullible enough. Like this one time, I was probed by an alien....
As a reporter, if someone came to me with this story, I'd fact-check the hell out of it. There's a lot you can find out about a person with a simple public records search -- even someone who has supposedly lived on the streets. Why do book editors not have to go through the same editing process?
"I was born a poor black child...."
When she filled out W-2 forms to get paid for the fiction she was writing -- didn't they include a social security number and other data that either wouldn't match up or would make researching her story really easy?
I just don't get it.
I don't see any point to the ruse anymore that these kind of folks are earnest in what standards they attempt to maintain. This never slipped past their quality control. It just looked like a money maker. What else do they want to know?
I'm curious if Americans are more likely to buy and read inspirational self-help biographies than they are to keep up with and read really good fiction. I suspect so, and I think that is likely the piece of the industry that is the incentive behind these issues.
I work in book publishing, and I can tell you this much:
Every publishing contract contains a very specific caveat that places ALL of the fiduciary responsibility for damage claims rendered due to fabrication, libel, misappropriation or intentional doctoring of information squarely on the shoulders of the AUTHOR. Some publishers offer to cover authors under their company's legal insurance policy, but that coverage is nullified as soon as it is proven that the author has intentionally included known untruths in their work.
This explains a major reason why newspapers fact-check and book publishers don't. Newspapers are actually held accountable for what they print.
Of course, just because book publishers don't have any financial responsibility to ensure that they're publishing quality books doesn't mean that they don't have a moral one.
gex said something about "slipping past quality control." The scary truth is that there really is no quality control in my industry. Hiring PIs to do background checks on all non-fiction writers would be seen as a huge breech of trust. Merely suggesting a background check would be seen as suggesting that your author is, indeed, a liar (which 99+% of them obviously are not). It's completely stupid, of course, but there's still this sense in publishing that we're all doing something honorable and noble, and to question one another would be somehow uncouth and insulting.
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