Margaret Jones/Seltzer, the publishing world's latest little liar, is getting a lot of ink this morning...
• The Los Angeles Times has a story that includes an interview with the liar's mother:
"I think she got caught up in the facts of the story she was trying to write," Gay Seltzer said. "She's always been an activist and she tried to draw on the immediacy of the situation and became caught up in the persona of the narrator. She's very sorry and very upset."
Whatever that means...
• The Oregonian takes a local tack with a just-the-facts wrapup titled "Eugene woman fooled New York Times and publisher"....
• The Eugene Register-Guard reveals that it spiked a profile of the liar last week when the paper discovered she lied about her degree, adding helpfully (if awkwardly), "During her interview with The Register-Guard, Seltzer spoke in the same street-style dialect she uses in the book."
Word!
• The Portland Mercury's arts editor has her own unique take on the situation:
Oh, this again? I don’t happen to give a shit if memoirs are “true” or not....
• And Undercover Black Man nails it, just nails it:
It’s the story of how young Margaret used to run with the Bloods – along with her foster brothers – and sell drugs... until she turned her life around and left the gang-banging behind.
Guess what?
Fucking lies. All of it.
Her real name is Margaret “Peggy” Seltzer. She’s white. Just plain ol’ white. And she grew up comfortable in white-ass Sherman Oaks with her natural family....
Wanna know what’s worse? In a confessional phone interview yesterday with a New York Times reporter, this lying bitch had the nerve to say that she did it to help black people... like the ones she met while working in a gang-prevention program. Margaret Seltzer says black folks wanted her to write this book!
“I was in a position where at one point people said you should speak for us because nobody else is going to let us in to talk,” she said. “Maybe it’s an ego thing – I don’t know. I just felt that there was good that I could do and there was no other way that someone would listen to it.”
Sick lying bitch.
The Penguin Group, which published “Love and Consequences,” has recalled all copies of the book.
That’s not enough.
For starters, Seltzer’s ignorant, tone-deaf editor – Sarah McGrath – owes an apology to the black community of South Los Angeles.
UBM doesn't ask the question, but I will: Were any actual black people involved in the publication of this book?
Another question: why do white people like memoirs so much, and why are they so easily duped? I, for one, am submitting this topic to http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com for resolution.
Posted by: Andrew | March 07, 2008 at 07:57 AM