Truth and 'Consequences'
Reality sells. And,apparently, book publishers are still so hooked on the cash dreams of true confessions, they’ll risk repeated bouts of fake-memoir scandal to give the public what it wants. In 2006, it was James Frey, who fabricated large chunks of his drug-addiction memoir A Million Little Pieces, and JT LeRoy, who wasn’t even a real person. Two weeks ago, Belgium’s Misha Defonseca admitted that her 1997 book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, wasn’t a true story of escaping the Nazis by living with a pack of wolves. And last week we learned that half-white/half-Native American author Margaret B. Jones’s acclaimed new Love and Consequences, her memoir of gangsta life as a South Central L.A. foster child, was totally made up.
Jones is really Margaret Seltzer, a white chick from Sherman Oaks. She had no foster parent named Big Mom, no surrogate homies with whom to sling drugs and tote guns. Seltzer’s real sister clued in the world after The New York Times published a feature on Jones. But the writer apparently has been affecting her “homegirl” persona for many years, which might be why such otherwise intelligent people as her agent, publisher Riverhead Books, lots of critics, and NYT freelance reporter Mimi Read were fooled. Also, memoirs sell better than fiction, so maybe the book people were blinded by the dollar signs in their eyes. But, seriously: Jones was brought up by some grandmotherly African American lady named Big Mom? I’m no savvy Big Apple publishing exec, but that’s nearly as unbelievable as being raised by wolves.
On March 5, the NYT explained why Read couldn’t better fact-check her Jones profile: “Because Ms. Seltzer told Ms. Read that her foster siblings were dead, in prison or no longer in touch, it was difficult for Ms. Read to find people to interview.” How quickly they forget. Wasn’t this the paper duped by reporter Jayson Blair, who had similar excuses for why his sources couldn’t be reached? Is it really that arduous to, say, ask Big Mom’s real name and see if any such foster mother existed in the L.A. system?
Seltzer told the NYT that she wanted to give “a voice to people who people don’t listen to.” But that’s both condescending and self-aggrandizing. Books like Monster Kody Scott’s Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member have already proven that people are interested in the voices of ghetto experience. And if Seltzer was moved to write Love and Consequences partly because of people she met while doing gang outreach in L.A. (if she ever actually did do gang outreach), she could’ve taken the approach of Wall Street Journal reporter Alex Kotlowitz, whose 1992 There Are No Children Here recounts the story of two real boys growing up in Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green housing project.
It’s tempting to think Seltzer simply couldn’t be bothered to do interviews and transcribe tape and all that other boring nonfiction stuff. But this isn’t about laziness. It’s more a case of a pathological liar (she even fibbed about her degree from the University of Oregon, which she attended without graduating) finding the perfect lucrative outlet for her fantasies. She wouldn’t have taken Kotlowitz’s tack, because Love and Consequences is all about her. And the people who enabled that fantasy had, not only stereotypical ideas of South Central life, but also their own fantasies about how compelling this “outsider” tale would be on the talk-show circuit.
Maybe these days a story isn’t worth anything unless it really happened to someone. But if the goal is to shed light on a situation most people don’t see – rather than, say, make big bucks – it’s not yet impossible to do that with fiction. Look at HBO’s just-concluded series The Wire, an often brutal dissection of Baltimore’s mean streets and troubled institutions. Former police reporter David Simon’s creation delved deeply, and affectingly, into the problems and relationships that plague an urban environment, examining them on an intensely personal level as well as a broader systemic one.
Sure, Seltzer doubtless didn’t have the skillz to come up with a story as good as Simon’s. But I don’t buy her stance as a misguided do-gooder. She seems more like the print version of a reality-show contestant, someone who covets the spotlight, who needs attention to prove she exists. Apparently, publishing companies need this type of author as well, so maybe they should just invent a new genre – enhanced confessional, perhaps? – and run with it.
Published: 03/12/2008
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I don't think anybody sees Seltzer as a misguided do-gooder - what else was she going to say after she was confronted about her faux memoir? "Yeah, I'm a pathological liar!"??? From what I've read, Seltzer is chronic liar - and a reasonably good writer. What I don't buy is the opinion I've read quite a bit, which is writing fiction is a form of lying. Writing a good book produces a work of art - what Seltzer did was betray a lot of people. Seems like she's staying under the radar now, which is a good thing.