People are never satisfied.
This guy called James Frey wrote a book called A Million Little Pieces, which is all about his life as an out-of-control, meth-taking, crack-smoking alcoholic, and his "journey to recovery." I picked it up in a bookshop once, and read the first few pages, because the guy I was going out with at the time was trying to convince me that I was an
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Yeah, I think they've done that now. I think that since the half-truths were exposed, the book has been sold with a little note inserted between the pages, explaining that the content is Frey's truth, not the truth.
But according to his editor-in-chief, Nan Talese, there is a big difference between an autobiography and a memoir anyway:
"A memoir is an author's remembrance of a certain period in his life. Now, the responsibility, as far as I am concerned, is: does it strike me as valid? Does it strike me as authentic? I mean, I'm sent things all the time and I think they're not real. I don't think they're authentic. I don't think they're good. I don't believe them. In this instance, I absolutely believed what I read."
So it would seem that what matters in a memoir - and Frey's book has always been sold as a memoir - is that the story is realistic, rather than that it is actually real. I think I agree with that. Complaining that this book isn't 100% objectively true is like watching a snuff movie and being angry when you find out that the victim survived. It's ghoulish.
Now, if I bought a biology textbook, or a scholarly work on Kant, and the content turned out to be complete bullshit, I would be angry and I would want a refund. But when you buy a book because you want to have an emotional wank over someone else's pain, and it does the job, you are not entitled to anything if it turns out there was some embellishment.
if people call you on your lies, just insist that you totally know it's true because you recovered the "repressed memories" of it, and who are they to tell you otherwise and deny your pain.
Hahahaha! Yes, I think we'll be relying very heavily on recovered memories. And it is a cardinal sin these days to accuse anyone of lying about their abuse, so no matter how preposterous or unlikely we make our harrowing history, we'll be untouchable.
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