IF ONE MEMOIRIST LIES....
DOES THAT MEAN WE ALL DO?
Well, the cat is truly amongst the pigeons now in the memoir world. Ever since the investigations have come out, poking a few uncomfortable questions about the validity of the memoir The Salt Path, the genre of memoir as a whole has come under the microscope. All memoirists now can feel the finger of truth hanging over them, as readers think, “did this really happen that way?”
For those who have not been following the scandal of the book The Salt Path, here it is in a nutshell:
A couple in Wales lose their home, because of a bad investment that didn't work out. That is how it was written. In addition, at the same time, the husband was diagnosed with an incurable disease, corti-cobasal degeneration. So, in the face of such overwhelmingly difficult circumstances, what did they do?
They went on a 630 mile hike along the coastline of southern England. Not that I see the logic in doing that.
If you were lucky enough to see the movie version, stunning scenery aside, that hike would be challenging even for the fittest hiker. Let alone a man dragging one of his legs, which is what the actor Jason Isaacs did, who was portraying Moth Winn. Fantastically difficult acting, I'd say, and even worse if, indeed, you did have the neurological condition for real.
And then, through the power of Nature, they found redemption.
The book was such a hit that it sold more than two million copies, and spawned a movie, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. This is the “pot of gold” as far as any writer is concerned, not just those writing memoir. It was fame and fortune writ large for Raynor Winn and her husband.
I suppose it's not unusual that such a hot success story came under scrutiny. And with digging around, it was discovered that there was no “bad business deal” but rather an embezzlement. And then the husband, Moth's neurological condition also came under the microscope, with experts dealing with this disease unconvinced of his “recovery”.
To be fair to Moth, perhaps he was misdiagnosed in the first place. It's not as though that's never happened.
Bricks were also thrown at the couple for using different names: Raynor Winn is actually Sally Walker, and her husband, Moth, is Tim Walker: (Ti-MOTH-y.) It's not as though pen names have never been used before, but when tied in with embezzlement, it doesn't sound quite so “above board”.
The Salt Path's reputation, and that of the author and her husband have taken a huge knock, and the storm has not entirely died down yet.
But, be that as it may, does it not make people think that memoir is really just an embroidered story of your past? More fiction than fact?
As I see it, the real harm, is that the reading public will now look at memoir as either a branch of fantasy, or that the true story is not always 100% true. That they can't believe what they're reading. The trust between reader and writer has been damaged.
Especially with dialogue, the reader has to give the writer some leeway, as who carries around a tape recorder to capture every conversation? The gist of the conversation should ring true, but it's not necessary to include every “um” and “ah”.
When the writer describes their emotion, is that true? Did they really feel that? I think the reader can be reasonably assured that the feelings are as written. As genuine as is possible, given that time has passed.
For myself, I have to think of elements of my own story that can't be proven. Was I taken up a deserted road by a taxi driver in Fiji and propositioned? Yes, truthfully, I was. How many things in my memoir need to be validated with date stamps? Did I actually go to Australia in the first place? How can I prove that? Luckily, I have my old passport, but still... that doesn't prove anything about what happened there.
The other great damage caused by this tempest over The Salt Path is that publishers, never that keen to take on a memoir in the first place, will now be even more reluctant. How many other memoirists' publishing chances have been stolen by the deception of Raynor Winn?
You can't blame publishers for thinking, if one memoirist can “make up” or “leave out” such relevant facts to their story, who's to say they don't all do it? Suddenly we might as well all be fiction writers.
One newspaper headline even read: MISLEAD BY MEMOIRS. Notice the plural. We are all tarred with the same brush of untruthfulness.
What do you, as readers, think of memoir? Do you like the human stories portrayed, or will you now give it a miss? How much do you think this is a witch hunt, a skewering of someone who has “made it” and been successful?
Someone working at the book store, Waterstones, said they had been instructed to move The Salt Path to the fiction section. That seems unnecessarily harsh considering most it is a true story. But how much is true? There's the rub.
To be honest, in my opinion, the witch hunt could have been avoided if a little more truth were inserted before publication. Hard to dress up embezzlement, and pass it off as a blip, I would imagine.
Comments? Looking forward to hearing what you think.
Until next Monday,
Rose
Wow! Moving it to the fiction section certainly does seem as if someone was feeling very disgruntled or trying to set an example to future wannabe memoirists.
I've been intending to read The Salt Path for ages but been deterred particularly by the miracle recovery theme. Unfortunately that is something which could now deter a publisher from accepting your memoir too Rose.
The point about truth in memoir came up at our latest book group. We read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. From the publicity it isn't entirely clear that it is fiction. I (and a few others) initially thought it was auto/biography based on interviews with a genuine geisha, until I got halfway through and started to have my suspicions. I felt cheated! If I'd believed it to be fiction from the outset I wouldn't have minded. Turns out it was simply based on the interviews and Golden was successfully sued by Mineko Iwaski for breach of contract, not least for identifying her when she had asked him not to.
It did make me go to Mineko's actual memoir, which I enjoyed more. But how truthful was that? It seemed more credible but we will never know.
And so it was ever so... When James Frey's 2003 blockbuster memoir 'A Million Little Pieces' came out as a supposed self-reflection on his life as an alcoholic and crack addict, I remember reading it with mixed feelings, manipulated into feeling the horror of the graphically described world around him, but never doubting the veracity. After all, this as an Oprah's book Club section and topped the NYT's Best Seller List for 15 weeks straight. And then James Frey was exposed three years later and all hell broke loose, the publishers forced to re-categorize as semi-fictional and libraries went as far as to put it into the fiction stacks completely. Addicts weighed in that this 'redemption memoir' was an affront to their own journeys. Joyce Carol Oates was moved to come out to say that this was an ethical issue which can be debated passionately on both sides. This didn't stop it from being made into a film in 2019 -- nor did it stop James Frey from rebranding himself this year with his new novel 'Next to Heaven' with press packets calling him America's Most Notorious Author and the Bad Boy of American Literature. I personally find it all distasteful and lacking integrity. Would I forgive him if we were a gifted writer and not the garden variety 'memoirist' I found him to be even before the unveiling? Not sure. In his interview with The New Yorker Frey said that with 'A Million LIttle Pieces' he was trying to frack truth from language and to create create literature and to blow the doors off the memoir as a form. Now with a TV deal in hand with his new novel, I just think that writers like Frey, and now the Winn's, have learned how to fleece the system and in the end they weaken the genre, not reinvent it.