Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Sept. 16--Truth and fiction
After our Monday discussion of Ashley Warlick and her "recollection" of hitting all those birds, I thought, "Must a memoir be true?" Remember the fuss a few years ago that came out the revelation by Oprah Winfrey that James Frey's best-selling memoir, A Million Little Pieces, was full of lies? Was it so bad that he lied about his addiction and recovery, or that he told an impassioned story about the same? Must a memoir be true.
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2 comments:
If a memior didn't have to be true, then it would just be fiction. A memior is your memories, maybe you remember something different than someone else. But it's completely different if you're lying about an addiction that you're saying you had. Just write it into a fiction book, not a memior.
I think that if you are going to write a memoir then yes, you should be honest. James Frey could have saved himself so much trouble if he just wrote "Based on a true story"
And just as a side note, after I read a million little pieces i looked into what wasn't true and they were:
1) He wasn't in jail for anywhere near as long as he said
2) The rehab center said they would never let one of their patients have a root canal without anesthesia
3) A girl from his high school did get killed in a train collision but he didn't know her and they weren't friends.
Those changes didn't wreak the story for me but it did change how i read his second book, i was much more closed minded.
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