Fire Pants

I didn't care when James Frey was found out. That A Million Little Pieces wasn't a memoir, as he claimed, but instead a bulbous fabrication, didn't matter to me. His story was one of self absorbed drug use, and if he wanted to get a deal by bending the truth, it wasn't for me to judge. I never thought memoirs were 100% factual anyway.

But these two recent cases have my literary panties in a bunch.

Margaret B. Jones, author of “Love and Consequences,” the critically acclaimed story of her life in South Central LA as a half-Native American/half-white, drug runner and Blood member, admitted she lied.

MBJ aka Margaret Seltzer is all white, "and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members."

The audacity, right? How could she think she would get away with it? She must have had classmates that would recognize her from her Episcopal years. Look, I don't remember the names of all my highschool classmates, but if one of them showed up on the national stage claiming to be a thug-of-a-different-race, I would recognize her lying face and call bullshit. (For more, including the best part: THAT HER SIS TURNED HER IN! continue reading here.)

One week before, Belgian author, Misha Defonseca admitted to fabricating her bestselling Holocaust memoir, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years. Turns out, not only did she not flee from the Nazis as she claimed, but she wasn't even Jewish!

Panties and books in a big ol' bunch.