Memoirs: Facts or Fictions?

[Deleted]

GirlBomb by Janice Erlbaum.

I just read it and the first first 70 pages or so are interesting and perhaps near to the truth. Then the rest of the book becomes some sort of Chick Lit Girl Torture Movie Script. "Oh, here I am. Torn (really, you can see the blood) between two juvenile deliquent Hot Boys who want me bad. Because...why? I give the milk away for free? No! Because I give the MilkShakes away with a line of cocaine for free! I am irresistible!"

Did this woman not have an editor who could point out this wandering from realistic fanasty memoir into Wuthering Heights but in Manhattan shelters and foster homes and without the compelling characters and storylines?

Unbelieveable!

[Deleted]

I'm wondering if Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcattera (made into a movie with Brad Pitt, if that rings more of a bell) is totally factual. It's in the non-fiction section (referenced under "true-crime") but I think I read somewhere that it's a bit controversial over whether or not everything he wrote about actually happened or if a lot of it was dramatized.

It's basically about a small group of boys who got sent to a juvenile facility because of involuntary manslaughter, where they were physically and sexually abused; years later they got together to take revenge on those prison guards. The author said he changed everybody's name except his own.

[Deleted]

Stargirl, it doesn't look good for Sleepers being a work of anything but fiction.

Does anyone what is the dividing line between memoir and just plain 'ol fiction?

I'm thinking of the book about Reagan, called Dutch. Where the author included himself as one of Reagan's inner circle.

[Deleted]

That's what I sort of figured, Rose Prose. Unless he really, really changed the details. (It was a gripping read, though. And a wrenching movie to watch.)

[groovethang]

Oh yuck, I finally read Running with Scissors. I'm not usually a harsh critic and enjoy most anything. This was so distasteful. I couldn't put it down because I hate leaving books unfinished, but I really wish I did. The whole thing just made me scrunch up my face; I'm sure everyone who saw me could tell how grossed out I was. That house and it's description of the filth gave me nightmares.