"I Committed Adultery in a Diabetic Coma"

Peter Carlson, "Magazine Reader" at The Washington Post, has written a funny column about the history of True Confessions, True Love, Black Confessions, and all those "true-life" magazines. Seems the whole sob-sister genre was invented by one Bernarr Macfadden, a health-food nut enthusiast who found gold in overwrought "true stories." (Bernarr's biographical page is worth a read all by itself; he also created "true detective" magazines and a slew of Hollywood cheapies.)

Once, inspired by the great essayist Florence King (who had supported herself with sob-sister submissions while she worked on her "serious" books), I looked into the possibility of augmenting my income à la King. Boy, was that a disappointment. The true-life "he-man" magazines were all dead and gone. And the pay scale for making up sob-sister confessions was $0.03 per word, and the turnaround time for the editors to even reply to a query was a full year. A year.

So much for my dreams of getting rich by turning out "My Personal Trainer Saved My Life...Then Held Me Hostage!" and other giants of the literary form.

Carlson cites several current true-magazine headlines that are obviously works of the masters; I particularly liked "The Night Jesus Was Born...THEY MURDERED MY SON" and "RUNAWAY WIFE: I Found Love in an Amish Man's Arms."

But Miss King, one of the best and most honored essayists of the 20th century, still captures the gold for her immortal true confession: "I Committed Adultery...IN A DIABETIC COMA."

Comments

[Shelley]

A few years back (first year of law school, maybe) I wrote a pair of articles for an RPG magazine. For a penny a word. Still, I really did enjoy spending those $80 checks. :)

[Kevin]

You did? What was your story? Please! Spill it1

[Shelley]

It really is not nearly so interesting as it sounds -- it has to do with a fictitious government organization that deals with supervillains. I am such a geek that I'm the world expert on this organization (I wrote a book about them for this company back in 1998). :)

[Kevin]

Ah, okay - RPG = "role-playing game." I knew that, I swear.

But true confessions are just another sort of RPG, come to think of it.

My one foray into skin mags was a true-confession about a sexual encounter in a hotel kitchen. It began "My girlfriend Barbara is the chef at the swankiest hotel in Cleveland..." and went on from there. (She was named Barbara so I could work in the phrase "my Barbara's bush.")

$80 was about what I got, too...or else I would've done it again.