This woman, Margaret B. Jones (actually Margaret “Peggy” Seltzer), claimed that some entire work of fiction was her true life memoir. Now, this is the second time (…Or is it the third?) that this sort of thing has happened in very recent memory.
I scratch my head. Why?!
Why do these writers do this? Is this some sort of self-delusion? Are they so mentally ill that they really believe their fiction? Is this some misguided attempt to get published any way they can, and they think that some fallacious memoir is going to put them in the “instant best seller” category with a film/book deal? Or is this some subversive, subliminal desire to shoot their writing careers and lifelong reputation in the head — a deadly bullet of perpetual shunned oblivion?
I have no idea.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why someone would delude their agent and their publisher, telling them lies instead of truth. I can see not telling fans that they’re deluded when they choose to believe some fiction world to be truth hedged in fiction’s clothing. I mean, who am I to deny fans their fantasies. But to go on record stating that, “Yep, this really, really happened…to ME…PERSONALLY.” Wow! Why not just sell the book as fiction? (Scratching head again.)
For the record, folks, my fictional characters, their worlds, life incidents, and settings, while maybe based on bits of collected reality blended, amplified, then mutated in my admittedly warped imagination before being vomited up upon a page, are FICTION, not memoir, okay? Got it? Gooooood. I’d never be so daring as to tread where my heroines and heroes go — where both angels and ranked demons fear to! (Shuddering here.)
AFTER DOING MORE READING ON THE SUBJECT – WOW.
Three authors — Frey, Albert/Leroy, and now this Jones/Seltzer — they all did it on purpose. Planned, executed, and acted to the nth degree.
Why? Well, I guess “hot memoirs” about seedy, violent lives are what sells to a public who feeds with frenzy on real life dirt. Well, those folks aren’t my audience. And I can’t imagine how embarrassed the publisher, editors, interviewers, and agent.
Who’s culpable? Not the publisher, agent, or interviewers. The author is culpable, that’s who.
Again, wow, wow, wow. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Think even McDonald’s or Burger King will hire them now? I doubt it. And you won’t find me wishing these idiots any luck with the rest of their lives. What they did, they did with open eyes, and premeditated intent. What they did hurts the rest of us seeking an agent and a publisher. Were I the publisher and all the rest involved who have to eat the expense and damage to their own and their enterprise’s reputations, I’d be suing to extract every bit of compensation I could squeeze out of these turnip brained idiots.
Rant off. Time to get back to my own books…which aren’t “memory lies.” They’re blatant lies, fully and freely admitted to be FICTION.
Recently:
- Writing Pedagogues
- They Work Very Hard
- Treading the Dangers of Fiction
- Infighting About Grammar & Punctuation
- Scary Writers
- New Novel, Chapter Two
- To the Book Store
- New Novel Amid Chaos
- Raw Gore, Explicit Cruelty, Debased Sex in Novels
- Back from Summer Hiatus
