Mea Culpa, And The Novel
Well, the book that I liked so much last weekend–Love and Consequences–turned out to be a hoax. (Kudos to Reader Elaine for the link.) This brings up a few things:
* “Jones” is obviously a talented writer and method actor. It’s sad she felt the need to lie. I wonder why she did it?
* Did the book affect me so deeply because of the ring of truth, or did it play to white middle-class prejudices by virtue of she who wrote it?
* In my opinion, this doesn’t make the sociological points the book makes about poverty and crime any less valid, though it does mean I’m never going to trust this particular writer again unless the book’s clearly labeled fiction.
* Would this book have been acclaimed so highly if it had been labeled fiction? Probably not, for a few of the things–like the vagueness about the protagonist’s original home and some uneven characterization–are acceptable only in the light of memoir.
Do I feel angry and betrayed? Not really. I enjoyed the book and got my cover price out of it. I am a bit piqued I didn’t spot it was false, but a hoax that someone takes years to perpetrate and believes themselves is a little hard to spot from the other side of a page. So, there it is, dear Reader. What do you think?
ON a very separate note, I finished Stephen King’s Danse Macabre. There were several awesome moments and statements worthy of underlining, but my absolute favorite was this:
I’ve always seen the novel as a large black castle to be attacked, a bastion to be taken by force or by trick. The thing about this castle is, it appears to be open. It doesn’t look buttoned up for siege at all. The drawbridge is down. The gates are open. There are no bowmen on the turrets. Trouble is, there’s really only one safe way in; every other attempt at entry results in sudden annihilation from some hidden source.
My God. I laughed for a good half-hour at that last night, in varying stages of hysteria. Because it is so, so true. The core problem in writing a novel is not “How will I do this?”, it’s “which of the many ways to do this will work?” Because you’ve got plot, uppity characters, the threshold of disbelief, all sorts of things working against you.
Speaking of which, I’ve got some serious work to do today. See you soon, dear Reader…
October 31st, 2008 at 2:22 pm
[...] the kitchen (mostly) cleaned, my friend TrashGlam[1] and I got on the subject of JT Leroy and the Love and Consequences hoax. During the consumption of a bottle of very good red, we moved on to the importance of Truth in [...]