Margaret Jones' Diaries: truthiness and beauty

You'd think there couldn't be a new angle on the Margaret Jones/Peggy Seltzer story, but then again, you probably haven't met the woman's former literature professor, Gordon Sayre of the University of Oregon in Eugene. Professor Sayre remembers Mama in this morning's Eugene Register-Guard:

In 2001 Peggy Seltzer, aka Margaret Jones, was a student in my course on Native American literature. We kept in touch from time to time, and last month I received an advance copy of her book Love and Consequences....

When early on the morning of March 4 I went out to get the newspaper and learned that I had read a novel, not a memoir, I was neither angry nor disappointed. If Peggy’s assertion that she had spent part of her childhood on the Quinault reservation was untrue, if the paper she had written about this experience was based on false premises, at least it was backed up by enough research to be convincing.

Lord have mercy. As Kate Coe puts it on Fishbowl LA:

There's a moral assertion--lying is okay, provided you're good at it. Or else, a professor of Native American literature knows little or nothing about the lives of actual Native Americans.

What says Professor Sayre (who teaches a course called "Early American Ethnic Autobiography")?

Every memoir or autobiography is an individual’s fashioning of his or her life, directed toward that individual’s conception of audience. The more intimate or psychological the events recounted — of childhood trauma, of addiction, of religious conversion, or even of racial identity — the more ludicrous it is for readers to insist upon documentary truth.

Actually, 'ludicrous' is when a literature professor prefers documentary truthiness to documentary truth. What kind of education are those U of O kids getting for their parents' money, anyway?

Despite his defensiveness, I'm sure Sayre knows the difference, at least at some level. Even the most fusspot of critics wouldn't be hanging Seltzer out to dry if she had simply misremembered a fact or two: misidentifying a Tercel as a Corolla, or setting a scene in 1988 when it was 1989, or calling the neighbor lady Miss Mary Jane when she was Miss Martha Joan. Jones/Seltzer, of course, did none of those things; she constructed a story and a persona that was nothing but a lie...a distinction that's obvious to nearly everyone but Professor Sayre:

[I]t is no accident that the notorious recent memoirists J.T. Leroy and James Frey also wrote accounts of lives on the margins of society, feeding readers’ lurid curiosities or morbid fascinations.

JT LeRoy wasn't a memoirist, but Sayre's already said that he doesn't know, or care, about the difference;  using his yardstick,The Diary of Anne Frank could've been a fictional account written by Jackie Collins, and as long as Jackie got the sound of the jackboots right, who dare insist on 'documentary truth'?

Sayre's essay, though, is a good reminder that fabulists don't work in a vacuum; for every habitual liar, there's a habitual lie-ee, someone who listens and believes and rationalizes and, when the truth eventually emerges, enters into the role of enabler.

How much did Professor Sayre believe Peggy Seltzer? Enough to thank her in the acknowledgements of his book The Indian Chief as Tragic Hero (hat tip, again, Kate Coe) -- a detail he left out of his Register-Guard essay:

...and Peggy Seltzer of the Quinault nation alerted me to the annual ride of the Sioux and inspired my teaching of Native American literature at Oregon.

I can see why he wouldn't want to brag about that. What I can't see is why he'd write an admiring newspaper essay about the woman, all these years later. (See: enabler.)

Beauty is truthiness, truthiness beauty; that is all ye know in Professor Sayre's class, and all ye need to know. Seltzer seemed to learn that very well, but it didn't serve her well in the end, of course, since the real world and Professor Gordon Sayre's class at the University of Oregon are two very different things...and thank God for that.

Comments

[Chris]

JT LeRoy wasn't a memoirist, but Sayre's already said that he doesn't know, or care, about the difference; using his yardstick,The Diary of Anne Frank could've been a fictional account written by Jackie Collins, and as long as Jackie got the sound of the jackboots right, who dare insist on 'documentary truth'?
Oh snap! Excellent analogy there. It's amazing to me how little the Oregonian is choosing to touch this, I think it made part of the Metro section one day and that's it.
Now if only she had included some wisdome about ferrets she had learned from the native Americans it would be the ultimate classic for the ages...oh wait, different plagerist :)

[Kevin]

Chris, the Oregonian did a front-page story mid-week and a Sunday essay as well. The Eugene Reg-Guard did one story, ran a wire report, and then printed Prof. Sayre's ludicrous essay on Sunday.

What interested me was that both Oregon papers (unlike the L.A. Times or Mediabistro) managed to suggest that there was something unseemly about bloggers and others digging into this story, something vaguely distasteful about it. Ultimately, of course, it says more about the state of journalism in the area, and how "Oregon nice" has crept into the discourse there.

It also reminds me of that case in Vancouver where the woman killed her "chronically ill" daughter and then herself; the Oregonian, the Tribune, and all the TV stations did stories on the tragedy of it all. Nancy Rommelmann actually went to Vancouver, asked around, found that it was actually a case of Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, and did a bangup cover story for Willamette Week. I was left with the impression that most media outlets in Oregon find it impertinent to pry, which is, of course, antithetical to the very notion of journalism.

[Kate]

Well, don't jump too quickly to point out the LAT's digging. While Seltzer's hometown paper has printed about 5 columns and an editorial on the story, the "news reporting" has been pretty thin--one quote from her mom. No former teachers, no former classmates, and not much from the 'hood, although Sandy Banks did some shoe leather work. Oregon nice is a cultural phenomenon, but never underestimate the power of "google bait" for the MSM.

[Chris]

Ok, well I guess I only caught one story in the metro section - maybe because I get the first edition in the AM it wasn't on the front - from looking over it they seemed to be portraying her in a sympathetic light - not as the liar she should have been called out as.
And i do remember the article in the WW about the Vancouver lady. Also wanted to give you bonus points for the Mercury comment about them not caring what happens off of E. Burnside!

[Jil McIntosh]

"The more intimate or psychological the events recounted — of childhood trauma, of addiction, of religious conversion, or even of racial identity — the more ludicrous it is for readers to insist upon documentary truth."

Y'know, I never thought I'd live long enough to see the day when I'd mistake a professor's statement for that of a failing student.

[Chris]

Well not sure what I read...the link you have to the Oregonian isn't the article I remember, maybe I'm remembering an original piece before the truth was told? Or I just need more vicodin?

[nishani frazier]

Favorite Comments:
The Diary of Anne Frank could've been a fictional account written by Jackie Collins, and as long as Jackie got the sound of the jackboots right

and.... Y'know, I never thought I'd live long enough to see the day when I'd mistake a professor's statement for that of a failing student.

lmao---these quotes are classic. Although I am phento-typically African American - if i tell a klan member that I'm actually whie, does this mean I wont get my assed whipped?

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"Actually, 'ludicrous' is when a literature professor prefers documentary truthiness to documentary truth. What kind of education are those U of O kids getting for their parents' money, anyway?"

A very valid point, my favorite out of many in the article! Great job with this one :)

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Beauty is truthiness, truthiness beauty

I think that will be my next tattoo :)

Great writing!

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"using his yardstick,The Diary of Anne Frank could've been a fictional account written by Jackie Collins, and as long as Jackie got the sound of the jackboots right, who dare insist on 'documentary truth'? "

Very well-put point here! :)

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