....and Manipulated "Reality-Lit"       By Bethany Shaffer
     The U.S. publishing world was abuzz with talk of fictionalized memoirs after The Smoking Gun's January 8 investigative report revealed that bestselling author James Frey fabricated much of his memoir A Million Little Pieces, in which he describes the most desperate of criminal and addictive lifestyles.

Frey—whose second book, My Friend Leonard (also suspicious), reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list—sold 3.5 million copies of Pieces, and cultivated a public persona based on his largely embellished experiences, which gained him celebrity admirers such as Oprah and Lindsay Lohan. Similarly, the notoriously secretive and highly connected wunderkind JT LeRoy—whose 2000 memoir of teenage prostitution, Sarah, was revealed in the October issue of New York Magazine to be a fictionalized work—came out as a completely fictionalized person: "LeRoy" pal Laura Albert writing, Savannah Knoop standing in.

These cases raise questions of publisher accountability, media manipulation and a restructuring of genre, as well as questions of emotional and perceptual manipulation. 

Literary hoax is nothing new. From 18th century poet Thomas Chatterton profiting on his era's interest in literary antiquity by posing as a 15^th century monk to KKK member Asa Carter fooling everyone in 1997 with The Education of Little Tree, an "autobiography" of a Native American orphan, writers have cashed in on fictive nonfiction throughout history. However, while much fictionalized memoir has been motivated by desires political, financial, narcissistic and/or creative, a new crop of literary liars seem to be pulling at the heartstrings of audiences with material on and off the page.

The cults of personality created by Frey and "LeRoy" suggest that more is happening than a quest for monetary gain and celebrity. There seems to be a desire that will not be quelled by literary success. What does this say about modern readers? Vivian Gornick, who admitted embellishing facts in her 1987 memoir, Fierce Attachments, claims that the memoir is becoming a "hybrid form," and some critics agree that when it comes to literature, readers are responsible for their own judgments. Fair enough. We certainly cannot compare Frey and "LeRoy" to former New Republic reporter Stephen Glass's blatant invention of news stories—journalism is a whole other animal.

Ethics aside, the cult of hoaxsters has troublesome implications of the value of literature today. Murder mystery, historical crime caper and magical dream worlds top the fiction lists, and in a society where many prefer televised images to the pages of a book, can we say that manipulated reality literature is a step up from manipulated reality television? Perhaps, but that feels like lowering standards. I'm going to stick with George Orwell and say that "in times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act, " and wait.

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