A momior you read could be a fake

[Natalia Evans]

An Oregon Author publishes a book and says it's a memoir about her. Makes me wonder what other memoir books out there are fake. But this author was caught.


http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_030408_lifestyle_memoir_recalled_oregon.1fe24ca5.html

 A memoir by a white Oregon woman who claimed she was raised in poverty by a black foster mother and sold drugs for a gang in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood has turned out to be pure fiction, a newspaper report says.

In "Love and Consequences," published last week by Penguin Group USA imprint Riverhead Books, author Margaret B. Jones writes about growing up as a half-white, half-Native American girl in South-Central Los Angeles in the foster home of Big Mom. One of her foster brothers, she writes, was gunned down by Crips gang members outside their home.

Jones also writes of carrying illegal guns and selling drugs for the Bloods gang.

Jones's story came apart after her older sister, Cyndi Hoffman, saw an article in The New York Times about the author and contacted Riverhead, the Times says. Hoffman questioned the publisher's fact-checking and said the fabrication should and could have been prevented, the Times reported on its Web site Monday.

The publisher has recalled all copies of the book and has canceled Jones's book tour, which was to begin on Monday.

Powell's Books in Portland, where she was scheduled to read, withdrew the invitation and will send the books back to the warehouse for a refund, said Powell's spokesman Kevin Sampsel.



Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is white and grew up in a well-off area of San Fernando Valley in California with her biological family, the Times says. She attended a private Episcopal day school and never lived with a foster family or sold drugs for a gang.

Jones, who lives in Eugene, Ore., also lied about having graduated from the University of Oregon.

Jones, 33, admitted to the Times that her memoir was fully fabricated. Many of the experiences recounted in the book, she told the newspaper, were based on the experiences of friends she had met while doing anti-gang outreach in Los Angeles.

"For whatever reason, I was really torn, and I thought it was my opportunity to put a voice to people who people don't listen to," she told the paper.

An editor at Riverhead, in an interview with the Times, described the discovery as "upsetting" and as a "huge personal and professional betrayal." The editor, Sarah McGrath, said she had numerous conversations with the writer about telling the truth.

"I've been talking to her on the phone and getting e-mails from her for three years, and her story never has changed," McGrath told the Times. "All the details have been the same. There never have been any cracks."

Jones didn't immediately return a telephone message left by The Associated Press at her home on Monday.

University of Oregon English Professor Gordon Sayre told KGW he did not feel hoodwinked by the deception.

"No, no I'm not upset," Sayre said.

The "Love and Consequences" scandal follows last week's discovery that the Holocaust memoir "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," by Misha Defonseca, was a fake. Two years ago, James Frey, the author of an Oprah Book Club selected memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," admitted he had made up or exaggerated details about his drug addiction and recovery.

[Natalia Evans]

I agree why don't they republish the book and call it fiction? It did sound like a good story but why couldn't the author say it was and had to say it was real?

[Peter]

I've never read any momiors.

[richard]

i dont get it. why not just make a book that isnt true then? why go through all the trouble to lie like that

[richard]

I've never read any momiors.

[SovaNu]

a million little fibers was hilarious.

[Persona]

I liked "A Child Called It"

[Natalia Evans]

I liked "A Child Called It"

That book made me cry and I hated the mother. I wanted to send her a hate letter if only I knew her current address but unfortunitly she is dead. I had to put the book down a few times because I was so upset.

[SovaNu]

i like Nancy and look me in the eye