By The Bookwise

Remember how Oprah’s “Suggested Reading” and “Bestseller” A Million Little Pieces by James Frey turned out to be fabricated? It’s happened again with a Halocaust memoir, of all topics. How does a reader know that a memoir is true, or does it matter if it is entertaining and interesting? All memoirs have some fabricated or at least misremembered information, because the writer is developing this from recalled memories. It’s the degree of misinformation.

Frey’s book, about his horrible struggle with drug and alcohol abuse and difficult road to recovery, was complete with exaggerations, embellishments and lies, such as reporting  that he had beat up a police officer and spent three months in jail and being involved with a fatal car accident.

Now, publisher Jane Daniel claims her 1997 book Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, about a young girl fleeing the Nazis and living with wolves is a fraud.  The book was published with an excellent blurb from Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, author of the Holocaust memoir Night. Daniel published the book, although the Holocaust scholars who reviewed it for her said they had serious doubts and suggested a number of changes. She ignored their comments.

What happened next is a story by itself. Once the book was published, lawsuits came flying from the ghost writer and author at Daniel. Then there were million dollar penalties and even jail time. Daniel, penniless, decided to find out if the story was fabricated. Now that the book is reported as a fraud, she is trying to get her money back with another lawsuit!

Holocaust scholars are livid that someone would exploit such an atrocity for financial gain. They comment that its as bad as saying the Holocaust never happened. Fray’s fakery did the same thing for the millions of people who suffer with addiction. It’s a sad state of affairs when people are scrupulous enough to profit from others’ pain and death.

How do you feel about this? Can a memoir be faked? Does it matter?

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