"She was HARD. REAL hard. I was even a little bit afraid of her."Another Fake Memoir Makes People FURIOUS
Good to have you, "Love and Consequences: a Memoir of Hope and Survival." High five, hug, etc. You will find that it is cold here in the winter on the other side, and that you do not have much "hope" or chance of "survival" after all. But on the plus side, now you don't have to hold up bandanas for the New York Times and look sad. Now you can grin and hold up your drink when they come to take your picture.
Now, this one...this one is a real struggle to understand. This woman claimed she was a drug runner for the Bloods in South-Central LA. Despite the -- uh --OBVIOUS problems with that, it seems that everybody believed her because she had a letter from a guy named Uncle Madd Ronald to back her up.
I don't know how to deal with that. The Bloods have reference letters? I don't think the Bloods have letters of reference. Maybe they do, and this one was just a good fake. I would like to read a bad fake; the one everybody at Penguin knows isn't actually from a Blood.
(Look at this flimflammery, Diane! Why, this isn't even from a Latin King!)
"We all wish that what she had done was to tell the truth," says the world of publishing, shaking their heads and sighing at the heavens. "Why would she lie to us about such a thing? Are writers not to be believed anymore? What will become of the reputation of publishing?"
I got it! Let your reputation dangle, cats. Since you don't actually HAVE a reputation, why don't you guys put your money on lies, and leave truth to scientists and politicians? You are not really equipped to determine truth, fellows. Why? Because you are suckers for good stories, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. That used to be your job.
The printed word has always been "caveat emptor," as far as I know, unless we are dealing with a book of recipes, in which case, I would be pissed if my tomato sauce was always sour and gross. But that never happens. (Ladies? That never happens.)
Stop recalling your lies, publishing world. Stop apologizing. Let the writer take the fall, and let the reader learn their lessons. Maybe the market for the memoir will fall apart, and we can all go back to being hopeless and waiting for death in a way that is non-strategic, and non-meaningful, and does not teach us anything about people we have no business trying not to understand.
Posted by miracle on Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:32:09 -0500 -- permanent link
