Gawker
Before being exposed as a fabrication, Margaret Seltzer's memoir "Love and Consequences" received quite a bit of flattering notice in the Times. Michiko Kakutani wrote a glowing review praising, among other things, Seltzer's "amazing job" at recreating the South Central neighborhood where it turned out she had never lived. Seltzer was also the subject, improbably, of a friendly "Home & Garden" section profile, which consisted mainly of Seltzer telling fabricated stories about her life and lounging around "a four-bedroom 1940s bungalow" whose interior is described in the profile in random asides — a "soft black vinyl chair" here, a "small art table" there. All the more interesting, then, that Seltzer's book was shepherded into print over the course of three years by Penguin Group editor Sarah McGrath, whose father is an active writer for the Times and was, for eight years starting in 1995, the editor of the New York Times Book Review.
As others have noticed, the Times itself noted the connection between Seltzer and Sarah McGrath in its expose on Seltzer, and also disclosed Charles McGrath's current Times job title of "Writer At Large." The paper also said that Sarah McGrath moved Seltzer's contract with her when McGrath jumped from a division of Simon & Schuster to a division of Penguin Group.
The Times did not note Charles McGrath's tenure at the Book Review, where he would have had plenty of time to get to know Kakutani — if the Book Review had much contact with Kakutani at the daily paper, which it did not, at least under his successor.
A Book Review editor, Barry Gewen, said last year he had never met Kakutani in 18 years at the paper. So perhaps McGrath and Kakutani were strangers.
Also, Kakutani's glowing treatment of "Love and Consequences" is not, on its own, evidence of special treatment. She has been described as taking extreme, love-it-or-hate it positions on the books she reviews. And she was likely also dazzled by how well the book stacked up against other autobiographies. Seltzer had the spectacular advantage over her nonfiction competitors of not being limited to faded memories of actual events, and this apparently allowed her to deliver the same sorts of fake thrills that propelled James Frey's fabricated memoir, A Million Little Pieces, on to Oprah Winfrey's TV show and the bestseller lists.
Still, the tight cluster of relationships between Seltzer, her loyal agent Sarah McGrath, Sarah's father Charles and the Times raises the question of whether Setlzer's book received more attention and less skepticism than was warranted. The paper should investigate its own coverage with the same scrutiny now brought to bear on "Love and Consequences."
Comments
Little known fact about me - despite my generically middle-aged whiteboy appearance, I am in fact a half-Mexican, half-Tartar, half-Cambodian teenager who ran away to the circus at age 6, became a cosmonaut, spent four months stowing away on the International Space Station, returned to earth with nothing but a parachute and a Snickers Bar (which tragically melted on reentry), then I was elected governor of South Dakota at age 13.
Can I have a book contract please? I'll tell my tale for a mere $500,000.
Oh, good god. I just read the Styles/Home piece and now I'm spitting fire. What a repulsive puff piece. And the quotes from the author are the most patronizing, heart-strings-tugging bullshit: Let me save you the trouble of reading:
(she now lives near)her alma mater - a university where she "learned big words for stuff I already knew," she said
(talks about)the painful business of getting a tattoo of a large, weeping pit bull across her back the day the state of Nevada set a close friend's execution date. "It's the most ghetto thing on my body," she said.
Unlike several other recent gang memoirs, all written by men, Ms. Jones's story is told from a nurturer's point of view.
The house smelled of black-eyed peas, which were stewing with pork neck bones - a dish from the repertory of her foster mother, known as "Big Mom," whose shoe box of recipes she inherited.
"I guess people get their ideas from TV, which is so one-dimensional and gives you no back story," she said.
Creepy and racist.
@SarahHeartburn: Huh? No back-story on TV? Hasn't this nitwit seen The Sopranos or The Wire?
ANY newspaper or magazine that, as a matter of policy, reviews books written by its own employess should not be taken seriously. The the NYT does so, produces the most important best-seller lists, and has wide influence beyond its own readers, is indefensible. The scope for real investigative reporting - ON, not IN - the Times is vast. What will we get instead? The "public editor" tut-tutting, an artfully worded "Edior's Note" perhaps, and a few letters to the editor.
Why can't they just call it fiction?
Wasn't there another story out this week on the BBC site about the woman who said she was raised by wolves during WWII? Though purportedly she actually half believed the story.
That being said, I could make some crap up and have no shame about it. I'll even take suggestions for my "history". My unique twist will be that I'll just laugh when the truth is revealed, and send out a clip of my dog rolling in money.
Will we ever get an apology from Oprah for the fabricated memoire she's about to get elected president of the United States?
As by usual Gawker standards, this commentary is totally clueless. As editor of the Book Review -- almost a decade ago -- and as an editor at the New Yorker -- even longer ago than that -- Charles McGrath probably had contact with every writer and reviewer in this city, to some degree. Does that mean he exerted his evil corrupting influence on everything those people ever wrote?
Beyond idiotic.
@Michael Jahn:No, but if you fabricate your own heartbreaking yet triumphant memoire, you might get invited to one of the slumber parties she'll be holding in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Added a link to prior Gawker coverage of book review, and some context indicating the traditional distance between Book Review, where McGrath worked, and the daily paper section, where Kakutani worked.
Ok -- so when I read the whole "most ghetto thing on my body" quote -- it did ring a tad false. (Holy crap -- wouldn't you want to be a fly on the wall in meeting rooms all over the city today?)
@Seanibus: YOU WERE LUCKY!!
I was born on a raft in the middle of the ocean after my mother and father were set adrift by other passegers on the overloaded boat escaping from Haiti (yes I'm white, my mother was French). My father was eaten by sharks after falling overboard, and when we landed in Cuba I was sent to an orphanage and my mother to prison, where she eventually died of bubonic plague.
I made my way to the US, was taken in by the Koresh commune in Texas, raped repeatedly, escaped the fire that killed everyone else, talked my way into Harvard, and now I'm CEO of a billion dollar corporation and give all my income to charity and live in a homeless shelter.
Well, at least some people at the Times want to underscore that aspect of the mystery. They highlighted a comment to that effect.
Here's a meta question: why didn't y'all cross post this as a comment in the thread, signed and all. Pissing contests in your own publication are so dead tree media. Bring it to their playground!
@Ryan Tate: Ah, the wonders of working as a cut-and-paste writer.
Next time you're lifting stuff, excuse me, doing research on Wikipedia, check out McGrath's job before the Times: at the New Yorker (only a few blocks from the Times), he was managing editor for fiction, which is meaningless except in the Gawker version of reality.
Froth on.
@urnidiot: Seriously.
Richard Price is reviewed by Kakutani today--I bet we could connect him and Sam Tanenhaus in four steps, but to what end?
@urnidiot: Exactly. Based on this argument, the Times and The New Yorker can never say anything nice about a book edited by Sarah McGrath because her dad worked at both. That's insane. She's a top editor at one of the top imprints in New York; some of her books are gonna need to be reviewed, and some well. (She's NOT the agent; correct it.) The idea that Kakutani could be bought off is hilarious. Grow up, Ryan. Not everything is conspiracy. And you're getting very, very close to libel.
@urnidiot: Exactly. Based on Ryan's argument, neither the Times nor The New Yorker can ever say anything nice about a book edited by Sarah McGrath because her father worked at both. That's ludicrous. She is a top editor at a major house; her books will have to be reviewed at some point, and some will be good. And it sounds like the memoir was good, if untrue. It's not the job of a book reviewer to fact check memoirs, and neither is it the job of real estate porn writers. And the notion that Kakutani could be swayed because she might know Charles McGrath is absurd. Why not just imply that the elder McGrath blackmailed the paper? Or paid someone off? Get over it. Not everything is a conspiracy. And you're getting really close to libel.
Oops. Sorry about re-submit. I thought it didn't take.
@giddygoon: A rotten review in the NYT is worth much more than no review at all. "First novel", anyone?
@Fishman: Damn, THAT is a story. Here's a $1 million advance. Don't worry about the pesky fact-checkers - we'll get the manuscript through during their daily cigarette break.
I'm a novelist and Sarah McGrath edited my last book. She is lovely, kind, and hardworking; I like her a lot. She must be devastated (and, I hope, angry) about being bamboozled by an author. As to her editorship of a book getting it a New York Times review: didn't work in my case! Dang. The whole Sarah McGrath editor/Times book review scenario sounds a little goofy and conspiritoid to me... I don't know how one gets reviewed in the NYT, but Sarah McGrath is not the magic key. She's an excellent editor, though!
@Seanibus: Great! Wait until I tell the story about my long lost brother, who won the Tour De France and prevented genocide in Iowa. That should be worth $2M.
@Fishman: I'm writing the check now.
I'm loving every second of Seltzer's grilling. Lemon please!
I just can't wait until those of us who have had fraudulent biographies written about us and our lives by obsessive tabloidists get their turn in the bloglight. Really, what's the difference? Fanfiction written about oneself; fanfiction written about someone you never met and wish you could be? It's all fanfiction! Expose and smoke-roast them all!
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