Ookie Wookie Nookie

[randy_byers]

I have an old Hawai'ian song stuck in my head and I don't understand the words (because I don't speak Hawai'ian), so I've been using nonsense. Thus the subject-line.

But that's not what I'm going to write about.

Comments

[maryread]

I haven't read them (Million Little Pieces on the shelf tho) but I decided during the whole hoo-hah with Oprah that I don't really care about the alleged truth value of such works. I believe that anyone who thinks an autobiography is strictly factual... should try writing one, but then have someone else check the facts. Oh. Er. Remind me to have someone check my facts, later. But no! I don't believe that autobiography or memoir can be entirely factual, so I don't have to follow that rule! I suppose if I were to publish such a work, I would have to either engage a lawyer to check whether any of my allegations were actionable, or wait until everyone involved is dead. Easier to call it fiction, don't you think? But you know how hoaxes have their charm

[randy_byers]

It's true that there's a fine line between fiction and non-fiction and that facts don't do what you want them to (to quote David Byrne), but there's also a difference between exaggerating something for effect and making shit up out of wholecloth and calling it the truth. Another thing my sister said was that Frey wanted to publish his books as novels but the publisher pushed him to publish them as memoirs. I'm not sure what the facts are, of course, and somehow this does not seem like a case where Wikipedia can be trusted.

I also agree that literary hoaxes are hugely entertaining in themselves. There's a movie out right now about the guy who hoaxed an autobiography of Howard Hughes.