Ethics and factuality are the time-honored pillars of the autobiography and memoir genre. Yet in the past two years three identity scandals have rocked the book publishing world. These three authors have lost their credibility and made their publishers look lazy and unethical as well. James Frey, J.T. Leroy, and most recently Margaret Seltzer are the authors of books describing lives they never lead. Each of them published celebrated, successful books, all of which were marketed as autobiographical, or containing autobiographical content. The reading public was fascinated by the drama and resilience of individuals who lived extraordinarily difficult lives.

In 2003, James Frey became famous for publishing a memoir entitled A Million Little Pieces. The memoir detailed his tumultuous battle with addiction. In his memoir he recounts his drug and alcohol problems and his difficult journey toward rehabilitation. It was wildly successful. But in 2006, a public documents website called The Smoking Gun discovered that several of the events described in the book were largely embellished or made up entirely. One particular chapter describes a nasty run in with the law, which resulted in his spending 87 days in jail. In fact, The Smoking Gun found that he had only been in jail for a few hours, and that most of the incident was made up. His publishers, Doubleday and Anchor books, initially backed up the author, but eventually they were confronted with too much evidence that he was lying. Frey defended himself by saying that all memoirists embellish events for literary effects, but his readership felt unquestionably duped. 

Another notorious literary hoax is that of JT Leroy. Leroy was a young male novelist whose persona and personal history deeply influenced his writing. His career began in 1996, when he was 16, and he became most famous for the 1999 novel The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. Leroy was known as an extremely talented youth who had lived a horrifying childhood, much of which was detailed in the novel. Leroy had made only a few public appearances, and when he did so disguised himself in a wig, hat, and sunglasses. He hid under tables at his own book signings due to shyness. After a series of questionable responses from Leroy during interviews, it was discovered in 2006 that JT Leroy was actually a pen name for a writer named Laura Albert. The character who had been interviewed for so many years was actually played by her friend, Savannah Knoop. Although Leroy never officially published a memoir, most readers believed his stories contained largely autobiographical content. 

Most recently, Love and Consequences, a memoir of one woman's experiences growing up in gang-infested south central Los Angeles, has proven to be fiction. The author, Margaret Seltzer, who posed as an impoverished gang member, who had been moved from foster home to foster home, is actually from an intact family from an affluent part of LA. It is apparent that her publisher, Penguin Books, did insufficient fact checking on her sources. At the same time, she created several alibis suggesting that she was who she claimed to be. Seltzer’s true story is still unraveling, but what is clear is that her real identity is wholly unrelated to the person represented in her memoir. 

"Reader beware" appears to be the growing trend in the memoir world. Writers strive to publish readable, thrilling books, and publishers seek to print the stories they know will sell. But is it at the cost of the reader's trust? In a world of Wikipedia and reality TV, the lines between fact and fiction blur together. We seek entertainment and we seek the truth. Now both are being marketed to us as a single product in an unprecented way, making our cultural intake into a chillingly realistic dream.