BUSTED! Plagiarists, Fakers & Literary Hoaxes

[diablocody]

Writing a memoir is tricky. When I wrote my book, I had to change names and locations to protect people. I had to manipulate the timeline slightly to make it more coherent. And there were several characters who were actually composites. Since the Burroughs thing went down, I think writers are required to disclose that stuff up front. I guess I came in under the wire.

There are also people who think I made the whole thing up. My reply is always that if I'd wanted to fabricate a memoir, I would have made it REALLY intense and given myself a drug problem, a hot stripper girlfriend, a "sage mentor," etc. When is comes down to it, my story is too boring to be fake. Besides, there are about nine strip clubs with my driver's license and SS# on file. Easy fact-check.

A memoir obviously needs to be true, but I guarantee you all the most beloved memoirs in the genre are polished and tweaked to death. 100% authentic accounts of experiences are rarely tight and/or entertaining. Life doesn't have a traditional narrative arc. You have to change a little of this and a little of that in order to have a marketable book, as opposed to a rambling self-indulgent diary entry.

[freddydingo]

That Truman Capote/Harper Lee rumor is a load of crap. The thought that Capote, one of the world's most self-aggrandizing authors, would allow his work to be published with someone else's name, no matter how good a friend, is laughable. It's even less likely to think that he wouldn't have claimed the credit if he had actually written it after it won the Pulitzer. It's also not true that Harper Lee never wrote anything else. Her output was extremely slim, but it did exist.

[Smilla]

I know she was pretty much cleared, but I wonder if we've seen the last of this scandal (or others) for J.K. Rowling...Personally, I've always had questions about what I see as a huge drop off in quality, loss of depth, and strange change in plot direction occurring in the Potter series after the first two books. It's not proof of plagiarism, (or anything) but it's suspicious to me.

(Although I seem to be in the small minority that actually likes the first two the best.

I don't know how "small" that minority really is, aibohphobia. I think the first two are the best and most consistent in tone and objective, which is the reason I raise an eyebrow about why the other books in the series read so...differently (read: poorly) to me. I realize this is not evidence of plagiarism, particularly because the question of whether the first two are better than the others is something of a matter of taste. But I think it's plausible that the first two books came from a concept and/or story thought up by someone else and the others are the ones Rowling tried to write herself, with less success. (Yes, I know there are other possible explanations, Potterfans, please don't try to bait me into a flamewar.)

[Deleted]

freddydingo said:

That Truman Capote/Harper Lee rumor is a load of crap. The thought that Capote, one of the world's most self-aggrandizing authors, would allow his work to be published with someone else's name, no matter how good a friend, is laughable. It's even less likely to think that he wouldn't have claimed the credit if he had actually written it after it won the Pulitzer. It's also not true that Harper Lee never wrote anything else. Her output was extremely slim, but it did exist.

Agreed. Capote had one of the biggest egos known to man, if he actually wrote it his name would be on it. There's physical evidence in the form of a letter that proves that rumor is pure bunk.

[lolad]

Love this topic!

On the Cassie Edwards scandal-I don't read romances but for me personally if I was to read one, I don't think I'd want all those descriptions of ferrets and the like-I'd skip right to the steamy parts!

I'm a librarian in a public library and one thing they always emphasize is no judgement-no matter what title the patron is asking for. Sometimes that's hard. I'm not a lit snob, I could care less if people want to read Nora Roberts or John Grisham or what have you. But it's the type of stuff that's mentioned in this thread that's hard for me. I want to say, "You know that's fake-right?" But I don't.

Like the person I just waited on who wanted the "Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About."

Oh, and to this day, we still can't keep copies of "Go Ask Alice" on the shelves! ;D

[Deleted]

With regards to Go Ask Alice, I first read that as an innocent 11 year old and was horrified. Then I read it again years later after I was no longer innocent shall we say and knew right away that the book was bs made up by someone who had no personal knowledge of what the hell they were righting about.

[ivy]

I've always been pissed off by the rumors that Harper Lee didn't write To Kill a Mockingbird. That's one of the very, very few books considered "classics" to be written by a female. It's as if people think, "Well, if it's such a classic it *has* to have been written by a man! I bet Harper Lee didn't really write it!"

This Beatrice Sparks person ought to be ashamed of herself. I think Oprah needs to invite her on her show and rake her over the coals for presenting so many fake stories as the truth!

[satellite]

My great-aunt used to get these slim paperback books, I think from Covenant House, like back in the 80's, pre- the Father Bruce Ritter scandal. They would be all about these teenage runaways (male and female) who would go to NYC or wherever and eventually fall into drug use and prostitution and then I guess get saved by Covenant House. I only read them for the dirty parts, but now I'm wondering if they were composite stories or just imagined out of thin air? Of course I know that stuff happens, but some of them were pretty detailed.

[Smilla]

Huh. This one was before my time, but apparently, some folks once tried to fake the existence of totally imaginary diaries of Adolph Hitler. Yikers.

[susyhomewrecker]

Cassie Edwards responds via Myspace.

Some highlights:

I am honoring my great grandmother who was a full blood Cheyenne. She would be so proud of me if she could read what I am writing about the Indians who have been so maligned for so long. And do you know? I feel picked on now as our Native American Indians have always been picked on throughout history. I am trying to spread the word about them and what do I get? Spiteful women who have found a way to bring attention to themselves, by getting in the media in this horrible way.

I hope that you will tell your friends, who are so much also mine, the wrong that has been done to me, and tell them that I will get through this. I will be found innocent and vendicated of any wrong.

For now, it’s all too raw and horrible, but I will be alright.

Vendicated!?! Shit, man, she's a published author! That, the awkward use of commas, and poor syntax are blowing my mind...and making me think that I could have a future as a romance novelist if I really put my mind to it.