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March 4, 2008
Apparently you can make this shit up.
Dan Savage over at Slog has this about the colossal lack of vetting done by the editor and publisher of "Love And Consequences", the most searing and heartfelt fake South-Central-female-gangster memoir you won't read this year:
Geoffrey Kloske, publisher of Riverhead Books, tells the New York Times that there was “nothing else that he or Sarah McGrath, the book’s editor, could have done to prevent the author from lying.” Here’s what they did do…Despite editing the book in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding James Frey, author of a best-selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” who admitted making up or exaggerating details in his account of drug addiction and recovery, Ms. McGrath said she did not independently check parts of Ms. Seltzer’s story or perform any kind of background check. She said she relied on Ms. Seltzer to tell the truth.“In the post-James Frey world, we all are more careful,” Ms. McGrath said. “I had numerous conversations with her about the need to be honest and the need to stick to the facts.”
Uh… gee. McGrath knew the authors real name, and the author claimed to have been in the foster care system, in trouble with the law, a university graduate—all things that 1. weren’t true and 2. are pretty easy to check out. The New York Times, of course, published a piece on Seltzer last week—and they didn’t check out her story either. Why not?
The rest of Savage's piece is here.
WBUR's Tom Ashbrook did this embarrassingly fawning interview with "Love And Consequences" author Margaret Jones (real name: Margaret Seltzer) on February 29th. It has the earnest-white-guy NPR tone you can count on anytime the topic is at all exotic, and even includes some gangsta rap in the transitions. Cringeworthy!
What's really interesting about hearing this interview in hindsight is Jones/Seltzer's careful avoidance of the first person in many of her descriptions and anecdotes—her conscience seemed to be trying to assert itself.
And just in case that's not enough analysis, Patt Morrison talked the whole thing over with "G-Dog And The Homeboys" author Celeste Fremon on KPCC today.
