You can’t believe everything you read. Soon you might not be able to believe anything you read, if the rash of fraudulent autobiographies continues. Something has gone screwy with several successful non-fiction writers. We are finding out that the reason they are so successful--- is that they’re making stuff up.

Several writers of memoirs (two within the last couple of weeks) have been exposed as frauds and catching them is as easy as “going on the Google,” as our Commander in Chief is fond of doing. Before I examine why it is that these otherwise intelligent people are stupid enough to try to put something over on us all, let’s take a closer look at whom the perpetrators are. 

We all remember the dustup following the revelation that Oprah Winfrey favorite James Frey who wrote “A Million Little Pieces,” a heart wrenching memoir of his drug and alcohol addiction was actually drunk with best-selling author power one day and made much of his story up. Hundreds of thousands of us bought the book, read it and empathized with its protagonist, only to be let down by lies and exaggerations.

Fast forward to late winter 2008 with the revelation that “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,” by Misha Defonseca, a book in which the author claimed she fled the Nazis when she was seven years old, lived among wolves in the forests of Europe while on the run, snuck into the Warsaw Ghetto (can you imagine anyone actually sneaking INTO such a place?) and ended up having to kill an SS officer who tried to rape her. Pretty amazing stuff. You’d devour such a plotline in a novel; I’d buy a ticket or two for the film. The trouble is that the author isn’t Jewish and certainly never lived with wolves in the cold, dark European forests. She did effectively cry wolf however, selling thousands of books for several years before being recently exposed.

In the book, “Love and Consequences,” published just this early winter, Margaret Jones chronicles her life as a down-and-out foster child running and selling drugs for The Bloods, one of the more vicious gangs on the tough streets of South Central Los Angeles. Turns out though that the author, whose real name is Margaret Seltzer, never sold any drugs, didn’t live or hang out in South Central L.A., grew up in suburban Sherman Oaks with her biological family and even graduated from a private school in North Hollywood. Seltzer has seen her book tour cancelled after just a week with thousands of copies of her phony story being recalled. Too many trees paid with their lives Margaret’s big lie and the lie of these others.

What gets me is that these bright, well spoken individuals with a fine knack for stringing words and thoughts and ideas together in popular prose took such risks, publishing stories that could be so easily vetted. With the Internet as everyone’s primary resource, fact checking is just a couple of clicks away. How is it that these three and others expect to get away with such shenanigans? College professors exaggerating their academic records, candidates fudging their military accomplishments, CEO’s lying about honors they allegedly received---it’s amazing that in a society as advanced as ours we don’t have more crafty prevaricators.

One of my favorite writers is James Michener. His books were part travelogue, part historical record, always loaded with factoids and the fabric of interesting times and places with intriguing characters and plot lines. We knew we were reading fiction. But Michener spent years researching his novels and got most of the details right. Other authors of note who have made their mark selling tons of novels have consistently done their homework, thus insuring integrity---Tom Wolfe, John Jakes, Tom Clancy, Norman Mailer, Dom Delillo, etc.

The question is this. Assuming that everyone lies (and to suggest not is the biggest lie of all) why don’t people choose better occasions to do it? Face it, lying is best reserved for self preservation.

--- “Did you knock that Ming vase over little Jordy?  C’mon now, did you?” 
---“Um, impossible dear mother since at the time of the crash, I was most likely on my way to Tiffany’s at the Copley Place Mall to put down the deposit on that multi-karat necklace I plan on buying you for your birthday!”
---“My birthday is not for another seven months.”
---“Gulp…”

That example of lying is understood by anyone, right?  But padding your record or playing loose with facts that are such a cinch to confirm or deflate? I just don’t get it. Perhaps some of these prevaricators deep down want to get caught? Sounds like psycho-babble I know, but why else would well-off college educated folks who have the God given talent to write long books and keep them interesting do it?

For the final word on the subject, I turn to America’s greatest writer if not her most perceptive wit. Mark Twain, himself an experienced tale spinner (heck, he lied about his own real name) put it into perspective well in a piece entitled, “On the Decay of the Art of Lying,” when he wrote, “The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal.”

Yes friends every one of us lies and I’m certain we have yet to see the best whoppers of 2008. After all, the election season is still just picking up steam. 

Note to all of you fallacious writers and the wannabe ones out there: Avoid the embarrassment, shame and financial downfall, when the truth about you bending truth leaks out, with the following simple phrase: “The following is a work of fiction, based loosely on actual persons or events.” The disclaimer is still man’s best friend when it comes to writing anything down.

I kindly offer this advice at no cost. And that’s no lie.