This week's latest fake-memoir controversy

This is getting ridiculous. Motoko Rich in The New York Times tonight:

In Love and Consequences, a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. 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.

Ms. 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 Ms. Seltzer’s book tour, which was scheduled to start on Monday in Eugene, Ore., where she currently lives.

Okay. Wipe hand down face. Let's backtrack. How did the truth come out?

Ms. 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 Ms. Seltzer (still using her pseudonym) and her 8-year-old daughter, Rya. Ms. Seltzer’s older sister, Cyndi Hoffman, 47, saw the piece and called Riverhead to tell them that Ms. Seltzer’s story was untrue.

Hold it. The New York Times didn't bother to check one word in its own profile of the author? The story, written by Mimi Read, is still online (and still without an editor's note appended, though the shortest and most elegant one would be Every word you just read is bullshit).

Meanwhile, Margaret Seltzer and The New York Times are not the only ones who need to fess up; Riverhead Books may have withdrawn the title, but it's still running a glowing review of Love and Consequences on the front page of its own website. The Times talked to Seltzer's editor:

Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied. “It’s very upsetting to us because we spent so much time with this person and we felt such sympathy for her and she would talk about how she didn’t have any money or any heat and we completely bought into that and thought we were doing something good by bringing her story to light,” Ms. McGrath said. “I continue to feel deeply sad about what’s happened here, but there’s a huge personal betrayal here as well as a professional one.”....

Ms. McGrath said that she had numerous conversations with Ms. Seltzer about being truthful. “I can’t tell you how many conversations she and I had about the need to stick with the facts,” Ms. McGrath said. She added: “She seems to be very, very naïve."

She ain't the only one, Ms. McGrath. Three years you worked on the project and you never tumbled to the difference between a private-school kid and a foster child gang member?

The blame, of course, lies solely with Ms. Jones. The shame is more complicated, but it has something to do with fact-checking in a world where The New York Times, the Oprah magazine, Kirkus, and a host of other media fall over themselves to praise a new fake memoir -- and none of it falls apart until a woman sees her sister's picture in the paper and calls the editor to say "That story you printed? It's all lies."

Comments

[Jil]

"She is still a few credits short of a diploma"

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

[Ranger Bob]

"The shame is more complicated, but it has something to do with fact-checking in a world where The New York Times, the Oprah magazine, Kirkus, and a host of other media fall over themselves to praise a new fake memoir..."

What IS this?

Why all the JT Leroys, the James Freys, the Rigoberta Menchus?

Why is everyone so all-fired eager for gang-banger drug-addict holocaust-refugee-raised-by-wolves oppressed-campesino truck-stop-cowboy bio-porn?

Do marketing surveys really show that squalor is where the bucks are?

I guess I should just take a couple days off, come up with a dynamite dysfunctional persona, write up a quick autobiography, and wait for the mailman to come round with the royalty checks. Seems to be the new scam in town.

I'm thinking bestiality in the mix. Nobody's done that one yet.

[Samuel John Klein]

We note that Margaret Jones' MySpace page is set to private now.

However, we are still in her extended network. So, hey, bonus there!

[Ranger Bob]

Have you taken a look at the NYT comments page for this story lately?

A small but significant portion- maybe 10 or 15%- are saying, "What's the problem? It's a great story and it needs to be told."

Ummm... what part of, "It didn't happen" don't they understand? Jeezus!

And then there are a couple who write, "Shame on the sister for ratting Seltzer out." Yeah. Omerta, and all that.

Anyway, egg on Michiko Kakutani's face, too, but I evidence suggests she uses Teflon makeup, so no long-term harm there.