Everybody Fakes It

“There was a way to do this book honestly and have it be just as compelling.”
- Sarah McGrath, naive Riverhead editor

Why do publishers keep getting fooled by fake writers? I know people can lie, cheat and scam their way to success in this world, but man -- how many times does it have to happen before people start catching onto the trend?

The most recent "fake writer" to be outed is Margaret Seltzer, author of "Love and Consequences" which she wrote as 'Margaret B. Jones' and was published by Riverhead. In the fictional book that Seltzer claimed was a memoir, she described her life as a half-white, half-Native American drug runner for a gang in South Central Los Angeles. After seeing a profile about it in the New York Times last week, Seltzer's sister called the publisher and sold her out as being a fake. Turns out that Margaret lived a charmed life and never had to sell crack to stay alive. Damn.

What I don't understand is with such heavy names in the press over the past few years, notorious for duping their publishers (see James Fray, Kaavya Viswanathan -- even Augusten Burroughs' accounts of his childhood were called into question), why aren't publishing houses putting more resources into -- what's it called again? -- oh right. FACT CHECKING.

There are so many kids who graduate college with super useful English degrees (sarcasm) that need work and some basic job experience. If a huge publishing house posted a $30K job on their website for a fact checker position -- more resumes than they would know what to do with will appear in their inbox. Then, if something slips by their new hire, the publishing company will have a great out -- "Our 22-year old fact checker neglected to do their job -- they have since been fired." Immediate damage control right there -- just blame it on the kids! I know the publishers have the money to do this -- so I don't understand why they don't invest in small resources, rather than having to pull one million copies of a hardcover book off the shelves?

At this point, if a white-bred, Connecticut girl walks into a publisher's office claiming that she used to run drugs for the Bloods in South Central, LA -- wouldn't you be the teensiest bit skeptical? I mean, wouldn't you at least try to find some proof that something as ridiculous as that actually happened? Maybe the publishers think that they can actually get away with it. Maybe they relish in the negative press (all press is good press?) But if anything it seems to bring down their credibility and piss off their readers. Once I found out that James Frey was a dirty liar, I was so mad that I spent any time at all thinking about and reading his book. Because of this, because of Kaavya's plagiarism and now Margaret's latest indiscretion, I'm hesitant to pick up a memoir -- hell, I'm hesitant to pick up any non-fiction book! I've been burned in the past, and it's going to be hard to trust again soon.