Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

interview with Seltzer on her “publishers” web site…. get it while you can, it’ most likely going to be taken down quite quickly
http://www.scribd.com/full/2214218?access_key=key-12fb1rkhg5hjncvgoity

Oh Oh! I forgot to say I got that link from MamaPop….
http://www.mamapop.com/mamapop/2008/03/weeping-pit-bul.html

About Seltzer’s interview:
Been there, done that with my own friends, relatives and students and the perspective she presents (from whatever sources she drew from) sure as hell rings true to me. The really sucky thing about this situation is that all of the very valid points Seltzer made in her interview - inequities in the justice system, public education, access to social services, etc. - lose credibility with the general public in the fake memoir fallout.

Ok, seriously, literary world?  There must be more than just Sherman Alexie to crib from.  This is the second person I’ve heard of recently.  If you’re going to write a questionably-true “memoir”, please look deeper than Mr. Alexie’s writing.  While he’s one of my favorite writers, can’t you all be a little bit more original while being unoriginal?

Briony, I had that exact thought while reading—she makes many important points about prejudice in adoptions, schools, gangs, etc—but it’s all going to be lost in the “She’s a LIAR!” hullabaloo.

She should totally be called out for lying, but damn.  I wish some attention could’ve gone to the programs she talks about… sigh.  Talk about a lose/lose situation.

Pity she didn’t steal from Forrest Carter’s “Education of Little Tree” since it’s a piece of crap written by a white dude.

I guess it was easier to steal from Alexie but if Robert Johnson or 2 chicks named Betty and Veronica show up in her book then he’s got a good plagarism case.

I don’t know why the publisher shouldn’t have believed her. In the article I read, her editor stated they’d spoken several times about telling the truth in the book, and how the woman had talked about having no money, etc. They believed her.

Two other publishers bid on the book.

The strange thing is, if it was good enough for three publishers to be interested, it would’ve been good enough submitted as fiction.

Of course, that part doesn’t address the plagiarism.

What is WRONG with these people?

Lie and steal, then go into the same standard riff when they’re caught.

I do question the “if it’s good enough for a memoir, it’s good enough for fiction” idea. I don’t think that’s the case. Truth can be stranger than fiction: readers and editors know that, and will accept events in a supposedly true memoir that they wouldn’t in fiction.

Just thought of another one. Wasn’t “Roots” a bit made up? *quickly searches Wikipedia* Oh, OK, he was just pretending to be related to Kunta Kinte.
Oh and plagiarism too - happy times!

The strange thing is, if it was good enough for three publishers to be interested, it would’ve been good enough submitted as fiction.

Yeah, but Nora, would the pubs have been as interested in it as pure speculative fiction from an upper middle-class white woman with a private school education?  Of course, that doesn’t mean she couldn’t have tried submitting it as fiction and said it was based on her own experiences.  Which still would’ve been utter bullshit, but at least it would’ve given her platform.  Or would she have received a contract that was close to six figures?

At any rate, she’s been quoted as saying that no one was interested in it as fiction, which is the same thing I heard about Million Little Pieces—that Frey tried submitting it as a novel and got shot down.

And is anyone else shaking their head at the irony that Frey’s book held more truth than Seltzer’s?  Oy.

You’re probably right about the truth v fiction angle. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

I love what she said about giving voice to the voiceless. Clearly she’s missed the boat on African American books. There are any number books, movies, songs, tv shows, etc… about lives in the gangs. Further, rather than giving voice to the voiceless it’s very likely that she got somebody with a true memoir bumped off the list. After all, it’s much more likely that a publisher will buy a ‘memoir’ about a white woman living the gang lifestyle than they will a black woman. As we know from these romance boards, stories from white people are simply more ‘relatable to the masses.’

And I said the same thing about the Holocaust memoir. Is there any particular reason they’re not vetting this stuff? I remember writing quilting instructions that my copy chief went over with a fine tooth comb. This woman gets a $100k advance and no one realizes that it’s unlikely that a white child would be given to a black foster mother, especially in a gang-infested area of LA? I know she claimed in the story to be biracial, but she still looks white. It so wouldn’t have happened, especially in the time period before the Adoption and Safe Families Act passed in the late 90s.