Fake
Memoirs
After reading the Smoking Gun article this week, “A
Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey’s Fiction Addiction”, and reading
through the long list of fake memoirs in the Wikipedia article, I considered
that if books such as these were only cataloged as fiction, a problem would
not exist. However, as stated in the
Smoking Gun article, had the book been a fiction novel, it probably would never
have been published. Because James Frey’s incredible story was considered to be
true, it attracted much more interest.
A memoir,
being nonfiction, is expected to contain accurate information about actual
events and true stories. By misrepresentation, not only is the reputation of
the author and the publisher tarnished, but the trust in the genre is somewhat
tarnished. A reader should not have to investigate the validity of a memoir.
I vividly remember the Watergate proceedings. As a
result of the deception from the Watergate
scandal, trust in prominent political figures was shaken. I remember feeling at
a loss and wondering how that trust could ever be restored. Fake memoirs evoke
a similar feeling of mistrust. What is the sense of reading nonfiction if its
validity is questionable?
Oprah Winfrey chose A Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey’s Fiction Addiction as one
of the books for her book club. Many read the book simply because it was
endorsed by Oprah Winfrey. She felt
personally betrayed, and also responsible for leading so many people to read
the book. As a result of the public
exposure concerning the gross inaccuracies in his book, James Frey managed to
tarnished her reputation as well.
As librarians, we have much at stake in this regard.
By placing a memoir on the nonfiction shelf, our patrons assume that it truly
is a work that chronicles real events. Obviously we are not responsible for how
a book is classified, and we are also not responsible for fact checking books
that appear on our shelves. Regardless
of who is responsible for the inaccuracies within a memoir, the reader will
associate some level of mistrust to whoever they associate with the experience
that they have with the work, even if, to some degree, that includes their
local librarian who checked it out to them.
Great annotation! One little correction, you listed the article, A Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey’s Fiction Addiction, instead of the book "A Million Little Pieces" as the Oprah's book pick in the third paragraph, no worries though, still full points!
ReplyDeleteGreat points about this causing a problem for librarians. I noted in my post about this book that patrons might still get something out of the book even if it is fictional. It was popular for a reason even if it wasn't actually true. So if we display the books in the library, patron might be misled. But if we don't have it at the library, a patron might actually want to read it, even knowing that it isn't true. It's a tricky issue!
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about how the whole scandal damaged Oprah's credibility even though she was just as unaware of Frey's falsehoods as the rest of the public. I recently had a personal experience where a coworker was upset that a book was mislabeled as being one of her recommendations. The very idea that a customer could have checked out the book because of her stamp of approval, and then decided not to check out any other books recommended by my coworker was very distressing. Trust is a fragile thing!
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