Gawker
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fake books
Oprah Winfrey's Liars Club
What's the one thing nearly every fake memoir scandal seems to have in common? From James Frey to Angel at the Fence, if a story is bullshit, chances are Oprah was there first. More »
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Comment by Baroness: I hesitate to say this, as she might send her Dark Helicopters (of Empathy!) to bedevil my tower, but it's... 13 Responses | Other threads
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fake memoirs
Lying Holocaust Author Says He's Sorry, Keeps Movie
After seeing the release of his memoir cancelled, Herman Rosenblat apologized, saying he lied about a girl tossing apples over the fence of his concentration camp because he wanted "to bring happiness to people." More »
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By Ryan TateComment by whatdeesays: I don't understand this belief that fiction is in some way not as powerful as non-fiction. I have been touched... 6 Responses | Other threads
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In Brief
Literary Love Connection
Byron Crawford, one of the best hip hop bloggers out there and also a raging homophobe and horny bastard, was very impressed by fake author Margaret Seltzer's outfit and demeanor in her video rendition of fantastic tales from the hood. He'd like to get to know her better. "You know who has two thumbs and lurves white chicks who wear doorknocker earrings? This guy. *points at himself with his two thumbs*," he says. Just carrying the message! [XXL]
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Comment by famousauthor: Is this woman a jewess as well as a gangbanger? Wow! She should write a book about that.... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Fake Gangster Caught On Video
Hip-hop journalist Harry Allen has unearthed a 10-minute video of disgraced memoirist Margaret Seltzer — remember her? two months ago? — back when she was still pretending to be an ex-gangbanger and drug-runner. The video was likely made to promote Seltzer's fake autobiography, Love And Consequences, and "may be the only existing footage of Seltzer in her full-on 'hood' persona," Allen writes. Seltzer dishes some fun-to-watch lies in the video, like when she talks about the violent death of a fabricated nephew (Allen notes Seltzer calls the supposed dead boy "it" and "thing"), and sometimes Seltzer abruptly halts or chokes up, as though her guilt or fear of exposure about lying has tripped her up. Some of the better moments, including Seltzer talking about "homies" on death row toasting her graduation, are excerpted in a two-minute summary video after the jump. More » -
magazines
In Prison, Reading Vogue And Harper's Bazaar Kind Of Makes You Everyone's Bitch
Derek Khan is living the high life now in Dubai, having put his past as a jewelry-pinching celebrity stylist behind him. He has recaptured some of his past glory, now appearing as a "commentator and makeover specialist" on satellite TV and in magazines like OK! Middle East. But in between Khan's come-up and his comeback, between 2003 and 2005, he did time at Rikers Island and two upstate prisons. None of his famous clients visited him in jail, so Khan kept tabs on them by reading fashion magazines. You can guess how that went over in the clink: More » -
bringing down the house
Shameless Publishers Lied For Profit
Fabricating author Ben Mezrich isn't another Margaret Seltzer or James Frey, instead he's part of a far more serious deception. It has emerged that Mezrich invented most of the card-sharking characters in his supposed "real-life" biography, Bringing Down The House, the basis for the hit movie 21. He also appears to have manufactured the bloody beating of a gambler, the smuggling of cash at the airport using hollow crutches, the theft of a safe and the very existence of an MIT instructor. The thing is, his editors knew all about it. But they decided to market his book as a true story, and label it that way on the cover. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Oh No I Di'n't.: Mezrich's other books suck just as much and the writing is just as bad (if not worse). All of his... more » | Other threads
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fake candidate day
Hil's Dangerous Bosnian Adventure Perhaps a Bit Exaggerated
So Hillary Clinton has been going around saying that she is qualified to be president of everyone in part because she was shot at in Bosnia once, in 1996. CBS News dug up their original story from that Bosnia trip, and it turns out the "sniper fire" was actually a little girl, with a flower. Some card spliced the report with the recent Clinton speech about how dangerous that trip was, what with all the "evasive maneuvers" and such. Busted! New York compares Hillary to memoir-faker Margaret Seltzer, but that's unfair: Hillary went to Bosnia with Sinbad so she's still got cred that no one can touch. Full clip attached below. More »
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By PareeneComment by SlickaNicka: Luckily, Hill's hair helmet protected her from any potential sniper fire. more » | Other threads
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faking it
Gangsta Love
We finally got around to reading the fake gang memoir, Margaret Seltzer's Love and Consequences. While we agree with the NYT's Michiko Kakutani's assesment ("self-consciously novelistic"), we thought there was one line worth sharing: "He leaned over and gently kissed me... his lips tasted like Olde English and chronic smoke." Word up!
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By SheilaComment by dinosaur_senior: Nobody calls it Olde English- we call it OE or 8-Ball. That would've tipped me off to the fraud immediately. more » | Other threads
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rants
Let's Ruin History, The Margaret Seltzer Way
The New Yorker just published a ridiculous, hand-wavy essay questioning the importance of factual truth in history and providing some sliver of refuge to fake memoirists like Margaret Seltzer even as it badmouths them. The essay is littered with questions, and they all have the sort of "everything is relative, man" ring you'd expect from discussions in an undergraduate philosophy class. "What makes a book a history?" "Is historical truth truer than fictional truth?" "If a history book can be read as if it were a novel and if a reader can find the same truth in a history book and a novel... what's the difference between them?" "Is history at risk?" There are a total of 16 question marks in the piece beginning to end, but they all drive transparently at the same answer, delivered toward the close of the essay in this summary of the historic meditations of English writer William Godwin: "The novelist is the better historian—and especially better than the empirical historian—because he admits that he is partial, prejudiced, and ignorant, and because he has not forsaken passion." The piece concludes by exploring, in a crescendo of absurdity, the idea that history — real, true, actual history as the term is understood today — should perhaps embrace a "license to invent" to draw in women readers, since women read novels and avoid contemporary history: More » -
books
Margaret Selzter Fooled Even Her Friends
The fake memoirist/non-gang member's believers included Inga Muscio, friend and feminist author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. Muscio introducted Seltzer to her agent, which resulted in the deal for Seltzer's Love and Consequences. Seltzer is either a bit crazy, or a total Method actor, because "everyone who has met her for the past ten years knows her to be the person she describes in the book," says Muscio on her feisty blog. Also: Muscio is pissed that by talking to a NYT reporter (More » -
margaret seltzer
At Least Lying Author Was Convincing
"To discredit Love and Consequences... allows Americans the luxury of continuing to ignore the problems the book represents, or at best of waiting for another voice to bring it to our attention. Every memoir or autobiography is an individual’s fashioning of his or her life, directed toward that individual’s conception of audience. The more intimate or psychological the events recounted — of childhood trauma, of addiction, of religious conversion, or even of racial identity — the more ludicrous it is for readers to insist upon documentary truth." [Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard via MediaBistro]
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By Ryan TateComment by onebadclam: I'm going to rewrite my resume to make it more intimate and psychological. more » | Other threads
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books
Fake Writers: Gotta Catch 'Em All!
The NYT's Motoko Rich helpfully rounds up all the offenders in the fake-memoir trend. Valley Girl gang-pretender Margaret Seltzer, James Frey, and Laura Albert (aka JT Leroy) are only the tip of the iceberg: "The history of literary fakers stretches far, far back, at least to the 19th century, when a slave narrative published in 1863 by Archy Moore was revealed as a novel written by a white historian, Richard Hildreth..." Meanwhile, Slate wonders, in reponse to Seltzer's claim to be part Native American, "Why do writers pretend to be Indians?" Apparently this, too, is a trend. In related news, As well, the gang-violence-reduction foundation that Seltzer claimed to have founded, called Brother/SisterHood, is now thought to be fake.
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By SheilaComment by Sarfaraz Ali: I know some fake writers, please be aware, here are the ID's they use bookwormonline@gmail.combookwormonline@hotmail.combookwormonline@yahoo.com ali.sarah7@gmail.comsarahali23@gmail.com scheiben.wort@gmail.coms... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Second Disaster Book For Editor Of Fabricator
Riverhead Books editor Sarah McGrath, who shepherded the fake memoir from Margaret Seltzer (left), bought a spectacularly inaccurate memoir once before. In 2006, Scribner canceled McGrath's reported $900,000 deal to buy a memoir from fashion reporter Emily Davies. Women's Wear Daily had publicly fact-checked Davies' 79-page proposal and raised many questions, including about an alleged dinner with Donna Karan, a supposed party with Jennifer Lopez and a dubious meeting involving three industry players. It also found a quote had been lifted from a 1998 Times article. And those weren't the only strikes against Davies — she had been in two prior scandals. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by trojanhorse: p. 78. Moreover, Genghis [Sarah: look up his real name?] has been deeply misunderstood. The Kahns were very poor. Orphaned,... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
No More One Source Profiles, Says NYT
Now that lying author Margaret Seltzer has made the New York Times look like useful idiots for printing a fawning profile of her in which she spouted her stock lies about her ties to the hood, the paper is pushing for some changes. Standards Editor Craig Whitney emails the newsroom today that they shouldn't run any more single-source profiles of people who aren't well known, because they could turn out to be lying schmucks like Margaret Seltzer and make the paper look stupid all over again. Makes sense. Points to the Times for doing some kinda thing, at least! The full internal email, reprinted below. More »
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Comment by lizzybennet: @dobrien: only if the story about the profile is written by Frank Rich's offspring, who wrote the front pager that... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Fake Memoirist Already Exploited By James Frey
Lying writer James Frey will be damned if he is going to miss an opportunity to milk literary deception for all it's worth, so he's already launched a new publicity campaign, less than 48 hours after newb lying writer Margaret Seltzer got the whole country talking about fake autobiographers again. Of course it's probably just a total coincidence that Frey chose now to launch the new blog where most of the text is copied from other sites, where Frey posts a purported lesbian fantasy video (so not worth it) and where he of course promotes his million-dollar-plus novel the name of which is not important. After the jump, the email Frey just sent out to his adoring fans. Watch and learn BG Seltzer: More »
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By Ryan TateComment by WaltonEgonon: james is the hottest guy ive ever seen ufff james come to poland! more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Lying Author's Real Trafficking Changes Everything
"Her senior farewell in the 1992 Campbell Hall yearbook reads, 'To my family I love you all so much, thank you for everything.' Meanwhile, her high school friends call her 'Pegatha,' their 'Skittle supplier' whose hardest drug consumed was 'vanilla coffee for finals.'" [P6] -
news you can use
Those Divisive Fact-Checkers
Hey, reporters out there: here's a good line you can use when those pesky fact-checkers mess with your most colorful and fabricated quotes. Nan Talese, who published James Frey's bogus A Million Little Pieces, has weighed in on the latest literary scandal: "I don’t think there is any way you can fact-check every single book. It would be very insulting and divisive in the author-editor relationship.”
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By Nick DentonComment by annasballs: @TheGintheCity: well, I know it's a radical idea, but maybe, just maybe, fewer but better books might not be a... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Lying Author Puts "OG Madd Ronald" On Her "Foundation" Website
Before she was exposed as a well-off suburban girl rather than a hardscrabble gangster, lying memoirist Margaret Seltzer claimed to have set up a "foundation" called International Brother/SisterHood, either to support her backstory, preemptively redeem herself or maybe just somehow swindle more money. (Thanks to commenter Sigerson for spotting the site and Hamud for taking an early crack at it.) The foundation's website appears to have been registered in the name of Seltzer's agent, Faye Bender, and claims the foundation does pretty much whatever you need, from gangland peace negotiations to anti-gang education to mentoring. "Although we were Bloods, we hold no grudges against CRIPS," the site reads. The most outlandish part is easily the biography of Seltzer's alleged "OG" mentor in the Bloods street gang, Madd Ronald, who the site said also goes by the name "Ronald Chatman." More » -
margaret seltzer
Fact-Checked Memoirs Would Cost $100 Each
"Whenever a case like this comes to light, someone asks: Why don't publishers fact-check their books? The basic answer is that it's not practical. Publishers release hundreds of books each year, most of them several hundred pages long. A publisher simply can't afford to fact-check all of those books to the standards of, say, the New Yorker, where a fact checker essentially re-reports each story." [NY Sun]
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By Ryan TateComment by Paddington: @lizzybennet: I am still waiting to hear back from them regarding a summer-of-98 internship. more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
NPR Waiting For Fake Memoirist To Return Message
NPR radio show Tell Me More was all set to air its interview with the author of the memoir Love and Consequences today, but then producers picked up this morning's Times and realized that might not be such a great idea. So they put in a phone call or email or something to the author, Margaret Seltzer, and are eagerly waiting to hear back. In the (likely eternal) meantime, they posted a very brief excerpt of their interview with Seltzer (pen name Margaret Jones), featured after the jump. Also after the jump: Some choice moments from Seltzer's interview with another radio show, WBUR's On Point, in which Seltzer sounds like she's scrambling to keep her lies hidden. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by YourGoldKeith: @Michael Jahn: it's beginning to look like the lying truth is part of Oprah's literary cycle. But her candidate may... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Editors' Pathetic Attempts To Fact Check Lying Author
The Times just posted a fascinating follow-up article on the saga of fake memoirist Magaret Seltzer, the well-off white lady who pretended to be a half-Native American gangbanger raised by a foster parent in the ghetto. In it, we learn that none of the editors or publishers involved in the publication of Seltzer's book or subsequent articles about it feels particularly badly about not detecting Seltzer's lies, because the author lied like a crazy person, enlisted a couple of fake foster siblings and it's not like anyone saw this coming. “The one thing we wish,” Riverhead Books publisher Geoffrey Kloske told the Times, “is that the author had told us the truth." Kloske's people, along with the Times itself, were suspicious enough that they did some fact checking, but couldn't manage more than the sad and weak sort of fact checking sadly lacking in primary sources. Here, for example, is how Penguin Group editor Sarah McGrath plumbed the depths of Seltzer's background, or, uh, didn't: More »
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By Ryan TateComment by dressyslacks_cutetop: Kind of easy to find out if someone is in prison, the Federal Bureau or Prisons keeps a website that... more » | Other threads
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the mcgraths
Can We Stop Blaming The McGraths For Fake Memoir Lady?
Margaret Seltzer, the pretend gang member who wrote a fake memoir about her made-up life, is one more liar who is simultaneously ruining the memoir genre and making it more popular than ever. Sarah McGrath, daughter of New York Times writer-at-large Charles, is also taking the fall as Seltzer's bamboozled editor. While hating on nepotism is more fun than a Hot Chip dance party, easy attacks on the McGrath family are pointless. Like anyone else, Sarah McGrath's connections have no doubt helped her, but no one bases a publishing career on a name alone. This scandal could have happened to any editor responding to the memoir craze, not just one with dad Chip at the Times and brother Ben at the New Yorker. After all, the McGrath family slogan is "Salvation by Faith," not "Salvation by Networking."
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By rebeccaComment by herzen: she should get fired like nan talese, who bravely took the fall for james frey. oh, wait. more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Fabricating Writer's Hilarious Interview
Before her publisher Penguin Group realized she was a liar and recalled her memoir, Margaret Seltzer gave an interview on Penguin's website and, probably, in press kits distributed to book reviewers. The interview is chock-full of quotes from Seltzer about her life as an impoverished gang banger raised in a Los Angeles ghetto by a foster parent called "Big Mom." The statements of course look absurd and hilarious, since everyone now knows Seltzer was raised by her biological parents in a nice suburb, where she attended private school and was not a member of a gang at all. Go read Seltzer's lies, issued under her pen name "Margaret Jones," while they are still up on Penguin's website, or just take in highlights, after the jump. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by ThelmaCabango: "No distinction between good writers and pathological liars." Wow. Because everyone who expresses themself in writing is somehow akin to... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Lying Author's Ties To The Times Book Review
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. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by The Authority: I'm loving every second of Seltzer's grilling. Lemon please! I just can't wait until those of us who have had fraudulent... more » | Other threads
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margaret seltzer
Lying Author Is Like James Frey, But Sadder
Meet Margaret Seltzer, pen name Margaret Jones, who until this week was a half-white, half-Indian gangland drug runner who grew up a foster child in predominately black South Central Los Angeles. Her memoir was hailed as a "raw... remarkable book" in the Times, won her tentative online admirers and became the 28th best selling memoir on Amazon after it was released Friday. Of course Seltzer basically made her whole "memoir" up, being entirely white, having grown up in the predominately white San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, having gone to a fancy private school and having been raised by her biological family. Her book tour was supposed to start today in Eugene, Oregon but her publisher, a division of Penguin Group, has canceled all that and recalled her books. How did she get caught? Her lies worked too well: More »
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By Ryan TateComment by saltwatertaffy: "rule of the street" #3 might have been good advice for the publisher. more » | Other threads
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