Slog - Comments on Memoirs and the Lying Liars Who Write Them

Comment by Fnarf

Fnarf — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:59:22 -0800

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....

Comment by Jo

Jo — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:48:46 -0800

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?

Comment by cassandra

cassandra — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:19:24 -0800

"I was born a poor black child...."

Comment by Mike

Mike — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:40:19 -0800

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.

Comment by gex

gex — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:51:41 -0800

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.

Comment by crystalee

crystalee — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:15:17 -0800

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.