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memoirs
This page considers identity fraud in the form of
fake memoirs.
It covers -
It
complements the discussion of surveillance and authenticity
elsewhere on this
site and the preceding page on 'survivor'
fraud.
introduction
As we have suggested in discussing authenticity
in a separate profile on this site, imposture, appropriation
and identity have been both a rich literary theme and
something used by authors to paint their way out of corners.
Faking an identity has also been used by some authors
to help sales or merely to evade being bothered. Others
seem to have grown into an assumed personality until some
had trouble discerning reality.
Archie Leach reinvented himself as Cary Grant, subsequently
explaining -
I
pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally
became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some
point.
Reinvention
is not uncommon
but with some authors smacks of profound dishonesty, even
malevolence.
Blake Eskin for example commented that fake Holocaust
autobiographies are -
an
affront to those authentic Holocaust survivors with
sad but not otherworldly stories, to the memory of those
who did not live to document their own fate, and to
those who take the study of history seriously.
authors and imposters
Contemporary authorial shape-shifting is evident in controversies
over Helen Darville/Demidenko's
unlovely The Hand That Signed the Paper (1994)
and the supposed Holocaust memoirs of Bruno Doessekker
and Misha Defonseca, highlighted earlier in this profile
and the discussion of literary forgery.
The "searingly honest" novel by 'Demidenko'
is discussed in Andrew Reimer's The Demidenko Affair
(North Sydney: Allen & Unwin 1996), Corey China's
2004 Under the Influence of Prize Culture: Helen Demidenko
& the Vogel, Miles Franklin, and ALS Gold Medal Awards,
Robert Manne's The Culture of Forgetting: Helen Demidenko
& the Holocaust (Melbourne: Text 1996), 'Tautological
Modernity: Democracy, Magic and Racism in the Demidenko-Darville
Affair' by Suneeta Peres da Costa in 8(1) Cultural
Studies Review (2002) 72-92 and 'Curtain Up: The
Demidenko/Darville Performance' by Christine McPaul in
Southerly (December 1999).
For Doessekker/Wilkomirski see in A Life in Pieces:
the Making and Unmaking of Binjamin Wilkomirski (New
York: Norton 2002) by Blake Eskin and The Wilkomirski
Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth (New York:
Schocken 2001) by Stefan Maechler.
They are an unpleasant echo of impostures by George Psalmanazar,
Norma Khouri, Rahila Khan, Leon Carmen, Buffalo Child
Long Lance, Grey Owl and Carlos Castaneda.
JT LeRoy
There has been similar controversy over JT LeRoy
and 'Navajo' author Nasdijj, hyped as author of an autobiography
"so achingly honest it takes your breath away".
In 2005 the NY Times sniffed that
Leroy's
brief career has generated the kind of magazine-feature
publicity usually reserved for movie stars. Sarah,
his first novel, published when he was 20, elicited
comparisons to Flannery O'Connor and Nathanael West,
as well as numerous profiles, all of which dutifully
recounted LeRoy's teenage career as a prostitute, his
androgyny and his friendships with celebrities.
A
year later the same newspaper and the NY Metro
published allegations that Mr Leroy was in fact Ms Laura
Albert and was not, as claimed, HIV+. The Guardian
gushed
JT
LeRoy is one of literature's most elusive and most compelling
figures. Depending on who you talk to, he is either
an endangered species, the last of the innocents, or
a spectacular example of media manipulation, the greatest
literary hoax since the Australian "modernist"
poet Ern Malley was exposed as a caustic invention in
the 1940s - and thus a dazzling satire on modern media
gullibility. He is feted as an authentic underground
voice by the hippest of the US hip, but very few substantiated
truths about him exist. If he is a him.
Albert had used the Leroy identity for her novel Sarah
in 2000, selling the film rights to Antidote International
Films in 2003. Antelope sued her in 2007, arguing that
as Leroy did not exist the deal should be null and void.
It was awarded US$349,500 in legal fees plus repayment
of the rights fee.
Albert had testified that she objected to people calling
LeRoy a hoax, saying she telephoned reporters under that
name because she believed he was inside her: "It
was my respirator. If you take JT, you take my other and
I die". The hearing revealed that Albert's friends
donned wigs and posed as LeRoy at book signings.
Nasdijj
Memoirist Nasdijj, author of The Blood Runs Like A
River Through My Dreams (New York: Houghton Mifflin
2000), The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping (New
York: Ballantine 2003) and Geronimo's Bones: A Memoir
of My Brother and Me (New York: Ballantine 2004),
has been attacked over claims that he is a Navajo Indian
and for inventing key elements of his autobiography. That
is unsurprising if he is, as alleged, white porn author
Timothy Patrick Barrus.
Khouri and Souad
Norma Khouri's Forbidden Love: A Harrowing True Story
of Love & Revenge in Jordan (New York: Random
2002) recounts the tale of the author's life in Jordan,
from which she fled after the honour killing of her closest
friend. The book was an international best-seller, with
Khouri touring the world after gaining temporary residence
in Australia, appearing on network television in the US
and in numerous interviews when not "in hiding"
out of supposed fear for her life.
Alas for the truth. Khouri was revealed to have a US passport
(having lived in Chicago from 1973 until 2000 after leaving
Jordan when she was three), a husband and two children
(rather than being a virgin) and several US siblings.
Publisher Random House Australia stated that
Following
our discussions with Norma we are satisfied that, while
some names and places have been changed to protect individuals'
identities ... Forbidden Love is a true and
honest account
It is in fact a tissue of lies, highlighted in Alison
Broinowski's 2007 documentary Forbidden Lies.
the 'memoir' is an example of where the publishers, as
gatekeepers, failed. Random House Australia subsequently
withdrew the book from distribution in Australia.
The incident is discussed in 'Tainted Testimony: The Khouri
Affair' by Gillian Whitlock in 21(4) Australian Literary
Studies (2004) 165-178 and 'Who's Who? Mapping Hoaxes
and Imposture in Australian Literary History' by Nolan,
Maggie Nolan & Carrie Dawson at v-xx of that issue.
Australian academic Therese Taylor has cast doubt on Burned
Alive: The Shocking True Story of One Woman's Escape From
An Honour Killing (New York: Random 2003) by 'Souad',
supposedly a non-fiction account - albeit based on 'recovered
memory' by a Palestinian girl who fled to Europe after
an attempted honour killing by members of her family,
who doused her in petrol and set her alight.
Taylor highlighted
substantial discrepancies in the best-selling work, concluding
My
suspicion is that Souad is mentally ill. She no longer
remembers her past, and her story is recreated by others
who make up details that show they are not familiar
with life on the West Bank.
Joan
Lowell
Precursor Joan Lowell (1900-1967) attracted attention
over her 'autobiography' Cradle of the Deep (New
York: Simon & Scuster 1929), replete with a detailed
account of how she had spent 17 years at sea in the romantic
South Seas. It included a description of her exploit in
swimming three miles to a lightship (while a family of
kittens clung to her by their claws) after her father's
copra schooner the Minnie A. Caine burned and
sank off the coast of Australia.
Alas, the Caine was discovered peacefully at
anchor in California, where it had been for two years.
Critics unimpressed by the tale of athletic kittens demonstrated
that Lowell and her father had been aboard the Caine
for a mere 15 months rather than 17 years.
James Frey
James Frey's 2003 memoir A Million Little Pieces,
which garnered sales of over three million copies by 2006
and was followed by My Friend Leonard, has been
criticised
as heavily "embellished". Frey initially responded
with threats
of defamation action against those critics.
Some observers questioned expectations about 'truth' in
memoirs. One reader more succinctly commented "He
should have written 'I'm an Alcoholic, I'm an Addict,
I'm a Criminal, and I'm a Liar'".
The LA Times thundered
A Million Little Pieces became a bestseller
because it seemed to employ a brutal honesty in telling
a personal odyssey from the lower depths of alcohol
and drug addiction to a painful recovery. Frey's harrowing
tale, and utterly reckless attitude toward the law,
attracted Oprah Winfrey, whose teary-eyed endorsement
sent sales into the stratosphere.
Now it turns out that Frey's tough-guy antics were largely
made up. The three-month stint in jail that he describes
- for instance, reading War and Peace aloud
to a fellow inmate - actually lasted a few hours. Dozens
of other violent events in the book were unmasked as
gross exaggerations or outright fabrications on the
website thesmokinggun.com. The details of Frey's addiction
appear to be more accurate than his claims of criminal
notoriety. But they are harder to verify, so who knows?
... After these disclosures, however, no one can honestly
call A Million Little Pieces a work of nonfiction,
or even a memoir.
US
lawyers filed over a dozen suits to represent aggrieved
readers: one inventively demanded refunds for all buyers
of the work and compensation for "lost time"
spent reading A Million Little Pieces.
Misha Defonseca
In 2008 it was revealed that the 1997 Holocaust autobiography
Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years by Misha
Defonseca, replete with a claim that as a six year old
child she made an unaccompanied 1,700km trek across Europe
and was rescued by pack of wolves who adopted her as their
cub, was a fiction by Monique De Wael - the Roman-Catholic
daughter of an alleged Belgian collaborator.
De Wael, who had earlier sued her publisher for US$22.5
million allegedly withheld royalties, claimed that
The
book is a story, it's my story. It's not the true reality,
but it is my reality. There are times when I find it
difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner
world.
Her
lawyer was somewhat more reserved, claiming that
It matters little whether the account is real or partly
allegorical, it is the product of absolute good faith,
a cry of suffering and an act of courage. In that it
deserves only respect.
One
might argue that such fraud, like that of Wilkomirski,
merits contempt.
Margaret Jones
Critically acclaimed Love and Consequences (New
York: Penguin 2008), supposedly a memoir by Margaret Jones
about "growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as
a half-white, half-Native American foster child who ran
drugs for gang-bangers", was revealed to be a fabrication
by Margaret Seltzer.
The author didn't have a Native American parent, didn't
run drugs for gang members and wasn't a foster child.
Instead she grew up in upmarket Sherman Oaks and graduated
from an elite private Episcopal day school. Critics noted
that she also appeard to have made up a foundation that
she claimed was helping "to reduce gang violence
and mentor urban teens".
Laurel Willson
Laurel Willson (1941-2002) first gained fame for lurid
- and of course wholly unsubstantiated - allegations of
'satanic ritual abuse' published under the alias Lauren
Stratford, which she later adopted as her legal name.
One of her memoirs was Satan's Underground (Eugene:
Harvest House 1988).
Stratford/Willson later assumed the guise of a Holocaust
survivor, as Laura Grabowski, and claimed to have known
Wilkomirski at Auschwitz. One reason may have been revelation
that she had a long history of mental illness and false
allegations. Despite claims to have given birth to three
children (two killed in snuff
films, with the third being sacrificed in her presence
at a satanic ritual) there was no evidence that she had
ever been pregnant or adopted a child.
Maria Monk and Anthony Johnson
There were similar factual problems with claims by Maria
Monk (1816-1839) in the 1836 Awful Disclosures of
Maria Monk, or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun's Life in
a Convent Exposed.
Monk offered a wild expose of supposed concubinage and
child murder by the Sisters of Charity at the Hôtel-Dieu
convent in Montreal, almost as lurid as the 1878 Trial
and Persecutions of Miss Edith O'Gorman, Otherwise Sister
Teresa de Chantal by James Crouch.
Irrespective of the nonsensical nature of the tale, contemporaries
discovered no evidence that Monk had ever been a nun or
novice.
Anthony Godby Johnson's A Rock and a Hard Place: One
Boy's Triumphant Story (New York: Crown 1993) - supposedly
written by a 15 year old - claimed that as a child his
parents beat him, allowed their friends to rape him and
denied him food.
No one actually appears to know Johnson, who claimed to
have fled at age 11 and been adopted by New York couple
before discovering that he was dying of AIDS. There are
apparently no official records of supposed facts, such
as the conviction and death in prison of his biological
father.
Every age gets the literary hoax it requires. A precursor
of A Rock is the 1971 best-seller Go Ask
Alice, supposedly an authentic diary by a doomed
US teenager. In reality it was a confection by its 'editor'
Beatrice Sparks, subsequently responsible for other "actual
diaries" attributed to troubled but conveniently
anonymous kids, such as Treacherous Love: The Diary
of an Anonymous Teenager, and usually marketed as
non-fiction. Sparks' claim to a PhD has been questioned.
Reviewers have been unkind about works such as Jay's
Journal (the follow-up to Go Ask Alice),
characterised by one reviewer as
detailing
15 year old Jay's decline from a successful student
with a genius level IQ, to a kitten-slaying, devil-worshipping
suicide victim.
Carew
and Lerner
In 2001 Tom Carew, author of bestselling memoir Jihad!
(London: Mainstream) about his supposed exploits
with the SAS and training Afghan guerrillas, was similarly
revealed to have been creative, as was Jimmy Lerner in
his memoir You Got Nothing Coming: Notes From a Prison
Fish (New York: Broadway Books 2002). Fine if you
are a novelist, less so if you claim to be presenting
the unvarnished truth.
US playwright Lillian Hellman (1905-1984),
whose defamation action is discussed elsewhere
on this site, lifted other people's lives for her "frank"
memoir Pentimento, one reason for Mary McCarthy's
famous comment that
every
word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'.
Daniel
Defoe gained more renown for successive fictional autobiographies:
The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722), A
Journal of the Plague Year (1722) and The Fortunate
Mistress, or Roxana (1724).
Koeppen
Wolfgang Koeppen served as ghostwriter for the 1948 Jakob
Littners Aufzeichnungen aus einem Erdloch (Jakob
Littner's Notes From a Hole in the Ground ), the
memoir of Holocaust survivor Jakob Littner. In 1992 that
text was published under Koeppen's own name as Jakob
Littner's Notes from a Hole in the Ground: a Novel.
Unfortunately for the greedy ghost, Littner's relatives
came forward with the original manuscript in 1993, criticising
Koeppen's egregious plagiarism.
The 1994 paperback accordingly deleted "a novel".
fantasy, fraud and the law
Latitude for exaggeration, deliberate elision or imperfect
recall has meant that there is little case law regarding
claims by readers for damages from authors (or publishers)
over fictions that were marketed as "searingly truthful".
Authors presenting manuscripts to agents and publishers
or film-makers may be guilty of fraud but are not on oath
and thus do not breach expectations regarding perjury.
Most litigation has accordingly involved -
- efforts
by publishers or third parties such as film producers
to claw back payments made to authors on the basis that
the author was providing an accurate account of their
own life rather than an overheated fantasy
- defamation
action by relatives or associates of the memoirist.
In responding to a class action in 2006 James Frey and
Random House unusually agreed to provide refunds to individuals
who purchased A Million Little Pieces before
27 January of that year. Neither the publisher nor author
admitted liability and the refund was not offered outside
the US.
Random indicated that it was concerned about fraud on
the part of buyers (authorial creativity is apparently
another matter). The refund was thus conditional on consumers
providing both proof of purchase (eg extracting a page
from the book) and a sworn statement declaring "that
they would not have purchased the work had they known
that Frey had not been entirely straightforward in his
account".
Two points of entry to the legal literature are 'Truthiness:
Law, Literature & the Problem with Memoirs' by Jessica
Lewis in 31 Rutgers Law Record (2007) 1-17 and
'A Million Little Maybes: The James Frey Scandal and Statements
on a Book Cover or Jacket as Commercial Speech' by Samantha
Katze in 17 Fordham Intellectual Property, Media &
Entertainment Law Journal (2006) 206-231.
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