There seems to be an influx of false memories rolling down the river of late. The first known of this was Clifford Irving’s book The Autobiography of Howard Hughes. I am sure there was others before him, but he’s on of the famous one. Then there was James Frey and his A Million Little Pieces in which he even had Oprah fooled. Oprah brought James back on the show to talk about the lies and for her to do this just probably made the book even popular. I can’t say for sure, but as a collector, I like to keep books of this nature.
The James Frey hoax had a bit of a backlash in that readers demanded their money back. I didn’t. I have the original book before the disclaimer was introduced in the re-released copies. I also have the O J Simpson book, If I did It that was released by the money hungry Goldmans. But I digress.
Recently, there have been two memoirs that have been exposed for being lies. The first was a holocaust memoir titled Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years by Misha Defonseca in which she states, as a Jewish child, she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust. Well, my first clue that something wasn’t right is the “pack of wolves”. Unless your name is Tarzan or Lucan (for those of you from the 70′s and remember the Tv show), no one has ever been raised by a pack of wolves. The second memoir was by Margaret B. Jones (real name Margaret Seltzer) called Love and Consequence who claimed she was a foster child growing up in South Los Angels and survived by selling drugs the street gang The Bloods. Oh, did I mention that she claims she was abused as a child and that she’s half white and half Native American? You should look this one up because she’s a hum dinger. The author’s, or should I say, the liars true story is, she actually grew up with her biological family in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley.
I am not sure why these people feel the need to fabricate their stories.
I am currently editing my first novel, which so happens to be about the holocaust. The protagonist is in an unnamed concentration camp. My story, unlike the ones mentioned, is of fiction. It is what you would call a historical fiction novel. I am neither Jewish nor have a Jewish background. In addition, I do not know anyone who was in any of the camps. After I had completed by draft, I had the pleasure of meeting Gloria Lyons who did spend time in four camps. Her husband was able to escape the Holocaust by being sent to Budapest and then to America.
Of the two hoaxes to come about the one that irks me the most is the book about the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a subject near and dear to my heart. This is a subject that should not be played with nor doubted. When others come forth with their stories, are they going to be believed? Hard to say. These constant false memoirs are starting to turn into the boy who cried wolf.
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