Prompt Week 7: Fake Memoirs

While I was vaguely aware of the problem of fake authors and hoax memoirs, I have to admit I somehow hadn’t ever heard of A Million Little Pieces and the controversy surrounding it. The article by Louis Menand about these hoax memoirs intrigued me and led me to look into more examples of the phenomenon than just the ones referenced by Menand. 

This list presents 10 fake memoirs and the controversies surrounding them, some of which overlap with Menand’s article. Others listed include Papillon by convicted felon Henri Charriere who claimed innocence in his memoir and embellished his tale of imprisonment and escape and Forbidden Love by Norma Khouri who spun a completely fantastical story of her life in Jordan despite immigrating to the United States when she was three years old. Another on the list was Love and Consequences by Margaret Jones (actually Seltzer) where the author claimed to be half-native and to have grown up in Los Angeles, getting involved with gangs. This one struck me as particularly audacious because the real author, Margaret Seltzer, was a white woman from wealthy suburbia who affected African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in her writing and interviews.

I looked into this specific hoax further because it seemed so insanely dishonest, harmful, and insane that she thought she could get away with it. This is, as discussed by Menand (2018), a clear example of a literary impersonation, “in which the author assumes the racial or ethnic identity of someone else.” Seltzer is a privileged white woman adopting the persona of a marginalized person of color, specifically one who supposedly went through the foster care system and became involved with the Bloods. Much like Menand’s example of this type of hoax, Famous All Over Town, Seltzer received critical acclaim from the literary community for her book and for her “experiences.” Michiko Katutani (2008) of the New York Times wrote a glowing review, concluding that: “with this remarkable book she has also borne witness to the life in the ‘hood that she escaped, conveying not just the terrible violence and hatred of that world, but also the love and friendship that sustained her on those mean streets.” 

The hoax of Love and Consequences was uncovered by Margaret’s own sister which brought her web of lies crashing down. The New York Times published a new article just a week after its glowing review about the fraud (Rich, 2008). In it, Rich explains how Margaret Seltzer grew up in the San Fernando Valley and attended private schools. Her use of AAVE was completely put-on and fabricated, an appropriation of a life she’d never lived. What made Seltzer different and maybe more insidious than other frauds I looked at is the effort she went into to hide her lies. According to Rich (2008), she “provided what she said were photographs of her foster siblings, a letter from a gang leader corroborating her story and had introduced her agent… to a person who claimed to be her foster sister.” This effort seems to have fooled everything she encountered, but didn’t fool her own sister who gave her up. It makes you wonder if there are other memoirs out there that are completely fake and no one’s caught them yet.

I also went to the wikipedia list of fake memoirs and journals which has a decently long list spanning back to the 19th century of known forgeries and hoaxes. What I found really interesting about this list is that there are very few from recent years. I wonder if it’s becoming more and more difficult for someone to get away with lying about their identity in the growing influence of social media and the internet. It was probably a lot easier in the mid-1900s than it is now to falsify your identity.