But actually quite a few biographies and memoirs have been either partly or totally fabricated. Wikipedia lists 12 such examples since 2001, some of them completely fake. Like Michael Gambino's The Honored Society, in which he claimed to be the grandson of a notorious Mafioso. He was exposed by Carlo Gambino's real son, Thomas Gambino.
I've read a lot of autobiographies, including those by Michelle Obama and Keith Richards, and I've assumed that everything they say is true, but that's not necessarily the case.
Even if they seem more or less truthful, there are always things that by their very nature must arouse suspicion. Like long verbatim conversations. Whoever remembers conversations in such detail? For that matter, whoever remembers the entirety of their life in such detail? Isn't some of it what they think happened or would like to have happened rather than what really occurred? And might a few things have been tweaked a little to look more flattering, or less shameful?
Family members and friends often dispute what someone says in a biography or autobiography. They claim there was no such family feud, or estrangement, or disinheritance, or child abuse. Of course they would, wouldn't they? They don't want their good reputation dragged through the mud.
People who fabricate whole memoirs are so likely to be exposed by someone who knows the truth, you have to wonder why they do it. I suppose they calculate that by the time they're exposed they'll already have made a tidy sum from their sensational lies so it hardly matters.
Maybe their real lives are so boring, they need to enhance the story?
ReplyDeleteBijoux: Could be. Or they just want a riveting memoir that will sell thousands of copies.
DeleteSalacious sells unfortunately. I enjoy reading memoirs of nobodies. But I do enjoy a good biography. In my opinion, it is a slippery slope when you trash a relative or friend.
ReplyDeleteMy dad liked a comedian/actor named Rosanne Barr. At that time in my life, I did not watch television. My dad loved her television show. I would have tried to watch the show but I felt she had told lies about her family to explain away bad behaviors from her past. I can accept a person makes mistakes, but, not blaming those mistakes on others by saying terrible things about them.
Ann: I've heard of Rosanne Barr but I don't know the background. Saying terrible things about other people is bad enough, saying them in a book that will reach a mass audience is pretty cruel.
DeleteHow does Wikipedia know what's fake, what's true?
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Wikipedia is edited by users so presumably the creators and user-editors have some experience or knowledge. I edit Wikipedia articles every now and again when I find errors or even to correct punctuation and grammar.
DeleteMike: If you look at the examples of bogus memoirs in Wikipedia, it's clear that they've been denounced by family members or other people in a position to know the truth. There's little doubt about it.
DeleteIf you go into any family you will find that the members all have different perceptions of the same event, so one "truth" doesn't match another's when it comes to the incidents of family life. I do believe that about memoirs also.
ReplyDeleteAnd family myths being what they are.....
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www: True. I'm sure my mother and father had versions of my behaviour that I wouldn't recognise. We all see reality through a kind of distorting mirror.
DeleteI've read edited diaris of two biographers recently and their accounts of the constrictions of family or government approval make one realise why some biographies are lacking.Quite apart from favouritism among the holders of private papers...Andrew Lownie has written about this problem.
ReplyDeleteFly: It must be pretty hard writing a biography when likely sources clam up and won't tell you anything. Which is when it must be tempting to guess at a few things to plug the gaps.
DeleteThe one person you can never really see is yourself.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, regarding remembering conversations - some people keep diaries. I reckon Michelle Obama is the type to keep a diary.
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Ms Scarlet: Very true about not seeing yourself. Re conversations, even if you keep a diary, presumably you wouldn't record the entire conversation, only the highlights.
DeleteWell, that's the thing about a diary it works much the same way as a sketch book - you don't have to write that much to remind you of something in its entirety.
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Ms Scarlet: Yes, that makes sense. Jenny used to keep a diary and a lot of the entries triggered off associated memories.
DeleteI am not and never was into bio/autobiographies. Somehow, I just could not get interested in that genre. My own kind of biography is perhaps my blog just like yours is yours.
ReplyDeleteRamana: Yes, blogs are very much a form of biography. Not at all chronological, but revealing all sorts of personal details.
DeleteLots of people lie about who they're related to, have done, have said ect. I have no doubt that celebrities lie all the time too.
ReplyDeleteMary: Indeed, people lie all the time. Especially about all those celebs they've supposedly met, chatted with, hung out with etc.
DeleteThey do it for money. Always follow the money.
ReplyDeleteAgent: Well, partly for money, sure, but I guess also for fame, for attention, and even as a game, just to see how long they can get away with such a massive lie.
DeleteMuch of it is for the money. Witness the TV show tours the writers make just as they come out.
ReplyDeleteI’m not much interested in personalities of any sort so biographies and autobiographies hold little interest for me.
Mike: I think the TV tours are obligatory, part of the publishing contract to give the book maximum exposure.
DeleteWe do have to remember that two people experiencing the same event can remember it differently, so feelings, impressions, reactions that are reported can be recalled and related quite differently.
ReplyDeleteI periodically enjoy reading some biographies, autobiographies, then articles, books that relate a different author's account of the person's life.
No doubt some deliberately lie for whatever the reasons, but then a lie told often enough can actually come to be believed by them and others as our former U.S. president has knowingly used and even demonstrated.
Joared: Indeed, people can have very different memories of an event, as I've discovered with members of my own family! They may actually be lying while convinced their memory is 100 per cent accurate.
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