So, in the last week, I've read about 2 memoirs--one published years ago, another just about to hit shelves--in which the writers have apparently fabricated the entire stories. I'm not talking about a little pinch here and there, embellishing a detail or two, I'm talking entire lives fictionalized and sold as fact. More than "A Million Little Pieces", the first one, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years" was pure fantasy, as was the almost released, "Love and Consequences", in which the autor wrote of a life growing up white in a black foster home, selling drugs for gangs in East LA. As I think about all the efforts I took in making sure my facts were verifiable or, if memories, accruate to the point that they could be recalled by others or at least reasonable, it makes me wonder how these writers ever imagined they could get away with it? Besides just duping the reading public, they've really lied to themselves. In the case of Misha Defonseca, over time, the years of lying began to seep into her own understanding of reality. In her advancing years, she actually began to have a hard time separating fact from fiction, however outrageous it was. Having been through the publishing process, I feel for the publisher to an extent. My editor was very clear with me about my responsibilities as a memoirist, making sure my facts were just that and, if they were sensitive, making sure that there was nothing that could be actionable in court. In the case of my father's criminal past, I know that at least that much is verifiable. For my personal stories, they have to go on faith in most cases, as many things really aren't verifiable. In the case of family memories, I can only imagine if an editor got into the mess of interviewing dozens of people, trying to get a clear story that matched the one their author wrote. My copyeditor did a great deal of fact checking on my final manuscript, but it was more about checking dates, quotes, business and geographical names, etc. I think that's where their responsibility ends, really. It's bad business for memoir writers!
Today could very well be the end of the race for the democratic ticket. In so many ways, I hope it is. I adore and respect both candidates and the last thing I want is for either one of them to embarrass themselves any further than has already been done. There is so much admiration in bowing out gracefully when the rewards of a brighter future neccessitate it.
The Queen Has Fallen
12 years ago
1 comment:
So sad that the Rosenblats lied about their story. Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was a great book and now movie, never pretended to be true. The Rosenblats, like Madoff, harming other Jews and it's terrible.
I read a New York Times article about Stan Lee and Neal Adams the comic book artists supporting another TRUE Holocaust love story. There was a beautiful young artist, Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the children's barracks at Auschwitz to cheer them up. Dina's art became the reason she and her Mother survived Auschwitz.
Painting the mural for the children caused Dina to be taken in front of Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. She thought she was going to be gassed, but bravely she stood up to Mengele and he decided to make her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber as long as she was doing painting for him.
Dina's story is true because some of the paintings she did for Mengele in Auschwitz survived the war and are at the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum. Also, the story of her painting the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the children's barrack has been corroborated by many other Auschwitz prisoners, and of course her love and marriage to the animator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the Disney movie after the war in Paris is also a fact.
I wish Oprah would do a story about Dina and her art not about the Rosenblats who were pulling the wool over all our eyes.
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