CORKSOAKING DOUCHEBAGEL!!!

WHY is it that EVERY GODDAMN TIME I go to publish a memoir, some SCHMUCKING KUMQUAT has to be exposed as a total lying BASKET OF SHIT?

I'm sorry -- that was harsh. What I meant to say was, "How sad and yet understandable it is that this woman suffers from a pathological need to lie and manipulate people by MAKING UP A WHOLE FUCKING LIFE STORY THAT ISN'T TRUE, AND PUBLISHING IT AS A 'MEMOIR.' Mental and emotional illness sure is tragic for everyone."

And then I meant to smack her across her TRAGIC FACE eight or ten times in a row!

Because, empathy and maturity aside, do you know how fucking bad this bitch is for business? Now I am going to have to answer 9000000000 MORE questions about, "So, are all memoirists full of shit, or what?" I was joking around about being called a memoirist the other day, but it's seriously not funny anymore, because these people are FUCKING KILLING ME.

This is NOT GOOD FOR THE JEWS.

Listen: you can write a perfectly great memoir without making shit up. Look at Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking. Brilliant, bestseller. What's the plot? Her elderly husband dies, and she grieves for him. That's it! No AIDS-suffering mobsters with hearts of gold, no running from the Nazis to be raised by wolves. Because when you're a good writer, YOU DON'T FUCKING NEED THAT SHIT TO WRITE A GOOD BOOK.

AUGH.

Comments

[Kirsten]

Oh, man, when I saw that in the news this morning, I went total apeshit! I couldn't beleive it happened AGAIN! And I totally cringed picturing you reading about it... sigh.

You said it all just exactly right in this post!

[michelle]

I was pissed off this morning as well. As I read the story, I was totally wondering how you'd react to the news of this lunatic. WHY ARE PEOPLE SO FUCKING CRAZY?! And, more importantly, how the fuck do they get book deals AND have stuff like this just slip through the cracks past absolutely everyone? What the hell is wrong with the world? Doesn't anyone check anything anymore?

And to throw more fuel on the fire, G00gle the book Forbidden Love, if you haven't heard of it. Another fake.

[michelle]

Oh wait, I have a correction. I think the book was also called Honor Lost, at least in the US (talk about a double entendre of a title!) -- it might have been called Forbidden Love in other countries.

[luckydave]

Hopefully, this only makes your case stronger - your books are filled with facts which are verifiable. You told the truth. By comparison, you're the silver fork among plastic utensils. Congratulations! There's now another reason for your head to stick out above the pack (you know, in addition to your superior writing). Way to go, Janice! You tell the truth when you write a book that's supposed to be the truth. I'd frame all of my answers to those leading questions that way. "Yes, some memoirists are douchewaffles, but I'm just a plain old waffle. The only thing that differentiates me from other waffles is that I'm served a la mode."

[Danika]

Alright, that no good biotch has some serious hate mail comming!! That's so rude to write a bunch of crap that she knows is not true and try and pass it off as a memoir! I agree with McGrath in the article that she is very naive! I'm sorry Janice that it makes your job that much harder, but I will always support ya girl!!!

[satia]

You know, I think this is hugely ironic really and you should keep publishing memoirs so that other memoirists will be exposed. There is definitely a pattern.

[Gennette]

they need to come up with a new genre: Nonoir - that way people could write whatever they want without all of this "they made it all up" becoming an issue. Oh wait, that's right... it's call FICTION!

[stana]

Let the baskets o' shit write their crap and get caught...at least their getting called out for what they are right?

Just keep being your brilliant self so we all have something to read that is actually worth our precious time. So when can we expect your next book...I'm waiting with baited breath!

[Clio Bluestocking]

These people compromise the integrity of any sort of memoir or autobiography. They're the literary equivalent of snakeoil salesmen. What sort of sick person LIES about being in the Holocaust? To second Gennett, if they want to write fiction, they should just write freaking fiction. What point are they trying to make by lying?

Although, the fact that Jones/Seltzer/whoever's own sister turned her in did crack me up.

[Gennette]

I am with you, Clio, the sister ratting her out is one of the funniest bits. With "don't they do fact checking?" In my mind Seltzer is the spoiled baby of the family and the sister was pissed that she was either a) going to get all this attention or b) making the family look bad to her own benefit with her big fat lie.

[Jeff Mac]

It's disgusting, but unfortunately not surprising to me that people are doing this. Anytime somebody does well financially at ANY damn thing, you're going to get the hyenas who come sniffing around for whatever they can get away with. (Well, at least the hyenas who aren't raising little girl Nazi fugitives in forests, because obviously that's a full time job, as you can read in my upcoming hyena memoir, "Changing My Spots.")

(In the interest of full disclosure, I'm actually not a hyena. I'm a guinea pig named "Carl.")

[Anne]

I think this is another symptom of our current cultural illness--the thirst for authenticity. Memoirs sell better than novels, so publishers try to channel books into memoir. (Frey tried to sell his as a novel, and they talked him into memoir). We also have reality shows where the entire plot is based on "who is lying and who is telling the truth?" Or: "who loves me for ME and who is just fronting to be on TV?" There's a whole lotta fronting going on in this world, and we're sick of it, so we cry out for truth and crave "nonfiction" and "reality," then beat against those offerings as hard as we can to see if they are as real as they claim. The pleasure we get in knocking down those pesky liars!! It's part of the game.

I'm sorry you got caught in this sick timing, but fact is, if it weren't "Jones" it would be someone else right now. It's what we do, this culture of ours.

And in the quest for authenticity, you're the real deal. That much is clear. Be strong!

[Michael]

Well, at least you never said you were a Holocaust survivor! :)

I'm writing a memoir about growing up in a white, middle-class enclave outside Detroit in the 1960s and the devastating emotional impact my (extremely) low SAT scores had on my subsequent life. Heartbreaking, let me tell you.

[kath]

You sound upset~

I love kumquats...

sigh

seriously.... that all sucks and all that.
( memoirs sell better than fiction? I never knew that..)

Janice .. take a deep breath
go anywhere on the internet and look at the reviews for Have You Found Her.

Stellar!

This BS too shall pass... your book rises above kiddo...

It is a wonderful read....this will not affect that...

[Janice]

Does me saying "thank you" to you guys ever get boring for you? Because it never gets boring for me.

[Lori Mocha]

Dude.

I think you can use this to your advantage because yours IS true.

And you can say that. Unlike others, mine is ACTUALLY true.

Seriously. I think this could be good. Really.

[Kim]

UGH.
On a brighter note, I got my pre-ordered copy from Amazon copy of Have You Found Her?, could not wait to finish my current book, which felt sooo long, let me tell ya, started your 2 days ago, and stayed up for 2 extra hours last night, b/c I could NOT put it down, had to force myself to turn the light off.

You rock.

Kim

[M. David Hornbuckle]

She really looks like a douchebagel too.

I wonder if I could pass off my novel as a memoir, one that TAKES PLACE IN THE FUTURE. Seems as likely as some of these others.

[Lady T]

Hey,Janice-I've been hearing about this latest memoir hot mess all this week and was thinking about you. It does stink that you're probably having to deal with questions about this during your tour(wonder if Diablo Cody has been getting asked about her ex-stripper days with that revelation about that guy on American Idol buzzing around the media lately?)but rest assured that those of us who have read your book will proudly point it out to anyone feeling doubtful about taking a chance on the memoir genre as an example of a good,well written and truthful one is like.

[Jackie]

What I don't get is why these obviously talented people don't just write it as a fiction piece.