Did they meet this woman before they signed this Non-Fiction book deal?
You don’t get much more Caucasian than that.
Posted on 03/03/2008 10:00:47 PM PST by lowbridge
In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods.
The problem is that none of it is true.
Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.
Riverhead Books, the unit of Penguin Group USA that published “Love and Consequences,” is recalling all copies of the book and has canceled Ms. Seltzer’s book tour, which was scheduled to start on Monday in Eugene, Ore., where she currently lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Darn, I was going to put her book right next to “The Hitler Diaries”.
Another fake Native American memoir. After the James Frey debacle, there was a great article about this phenomenon. I’m going to try to find it and post it.
God only knows how many of these things are phony.
Also funny that this story is from the NYT, who've had their own problems with the truth :)
Well of course you had to resort to fiction. Look lady, get career in journalism. Then you can write fiction but pass it along as relayed by "confidential sources", and weave all the left-wing self-loathing perpetual-victimhood whitey-made-me-do-it BS every day!
Couldn’t they just label it “Fiction” and sell it anyway?
but it was soooooooooooooo noble
with libs, the ends always justifies the means
Has`anyone here ever seen Sherman Oaks the tv series from cable?
Check this link. It's worse if you can believe it.
Kakutani does hint that it might not be all that it's cracked up to be with comments such as the following one, but nevertheless the review is done as a full-course meal, including the entire hook, line, and sinker:
Although some of the scenes she has recreated from her youth (which are told in colorful, streetwise argot) can feel self-consciously novelistic at times, Ms. Jones has done an amazing job of conjuring up her old neighborhood
Did they meet this woman before they signed this Non-Fiction book deal?
You don’t get much more Caucasian than that.
“And this year’s winner of the Rigoberto Menschu award is...”
Victimization-entitlement,it’s a cottage industry
That’s the problem with society now a days. Margaret Mead’s fabrication of “Coming of age in Samoa” didn’t get exposed for 50 years. Can’t a liberal fake a book anymore?
/jasonblair
Ooops!
Then it would be a racist attack on minority culture.
Can't have that, can we.
Oh man. Another dingbat Valley Girl.
No but I lived near there and know it first hand. It's ethnic alright, but oy vey a different kind of ethnic.
Send treats to the troops...
Great because you did it!
www.AnySoldier.com
Some folks still won’t that work of fiction go down in flames (or rather, get transfered over to the section with the early 20th century fiction) like it should. Instead, the character of Derek Freeman is attacked, and young minds indoctrinated against all notions that run counter to leftist ideology, even in the face of their fictional bases being wholly exposed.
And water continues to be wet.
They always use this same excuse. Funny.
This fraud is probably aspiring for a career in higher ed., like former Prof. Ward Churchill.
Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied...
In April 2005, Ms. Bender submitted about 100 pages to four publishers. Ms. McGrath, then at Scribner, a unit of Simon & Schuster, agreed to a deal for what she said was less than $100,000. When Ms. McGrath moved to Riverhead in 2006, she moved Ms. Seltzer’s contract.
Over the course of three years, Ms. McGrath, who is the daughter of Charles McGrath, a writer at large at The Times, worked closely with Ms. Seltzer on the book. “I’ve been talking to her on the phone and getting e-mails from her for three years and her story never has changed,” Ms. McGrath said. “All the details have been the same. There never have been any cracks.”
Rigoberta Menchu——the fake Guatemalan Indian who got a Nobel Prize for her fake biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigoberta_Mench%C3%BA
She’s preparing herself for a Nobel Prize in Peace like Rigoberta Menchu.
Oprah’s book club is the driver in much of modern publishing. Books she recommends sell in the millions. Even books which have titles SIMILAR to the ones she recommends sell well. Not only do the writers get money, so do the agents and the publishers!
This book, like Kaavya Viswanathan’s “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life”, or James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces,” screamed “Buy it and get it to Oprah!”
I am sure “Love and Consequences” would have been a worthy book to stand on its own merits. It’s even all right to use a pen name, as Mr. Samuel Clemens and Mr. Eric Blair can tell you. The problem is the writer lied to sell the story.
Sad for her—sad for the industry.
I was thinking the same thing. They are just ticked that they were ‘taken in’ by the author. If it was good enough to publish, publish it.
Her story is like an Obama speech...
Thanks, Blood.
Interesting, yes.
Surprised, no.
"In 'Love and Consequences,' a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods...Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family."
BWWHAAAAAAAA!!!
Bet she's spent the money by now. :o)
See the pic of the hag posted, above?
The earrings, ol' friend, a dead giveaway.
If ya know what I mean? {gotta be current on *fashion* trends...}
Wonder WTF's going on, been several *outings* of fakers lately.
Not complaining mind you, just suspicious.
Now back to more worldly matters.
...like Favre's retirement. ;^)
Most people can’t tell I’m part Indian (Cherokee.) So was Tom Landry, head coach of the Cowboys. Much of the “Indian” in people is how they dress. Maybe she could get an interview deal with Dan Rather. This should be right up his alley.
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