Creative Zeitgeist

By Martha Woodworth

I was one of the first to point the finger of blame at James Frey for his false memoir, A Million Little Pieces. I even wrote to Oprah accusing her of enabling Frey in those first days after the world learned some of the things he wrote about did not actually happen. People forget Oprah originally tried to defend him and shore up her own credibility for helping make the book a best-seller. She’d had Frey on her show and thoroughly drenched him in her special brand of chicken soup for the soul. Later, she would be hounded (by people like me, no doubt, threatening to put a dent in her immense credibility) into taking back the matzoh balls.

On one of the highest-rated episodes of all time, she excoriated the stuttering author, who sat shrinking further and further into his shirt. Oprah invited his famous, big-time editor on the show as well, to ostensibly shoulder the blame. But basically, it all fell on Frey, the one with the least amount of worldly power, who ended up looking like Oprah’s whipped dog. (I’ll bet she wouldn’t do that to one of her precious puppies if they pooped on the Persian rugs in her overstuffed dollhouses).

Now I wish I could take back the letter I wrote because, as time went on and several other hapless “memoirists” were unmasked, I remembered what happened to me when I approached publishing consultants, agents, and editors to discuss my own novels-for-hire.

“The first thing you should know,” I was told, again and again, “is that fiction by unknown novelists doesn’t sell. If you’ve got a book that in any way resembles your life, turn it into a memoir. Memoirs of famous people sell best, of course. However, now and then one written by an unknown, especially if it contains lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll, will scoot through and become a bestseller.”

I always felt miffed upon hearing this advice. As a long-time freelance journalist, I’ve had columns and features published in national publications, and I also write nonfiction books. However, my novels are fiction, pure and simple. Yes, of course some of them are autobiographical, to a degree. However, I never write them as pure fact.

My novels are totally different from memoirs, and I’ve done both. You might say that an autobiographical novel is a memoir stretched out - a euphemism for “not true.” At least, not in the literal sense, because I’ve always felt that novels were truer than nonfiction. In fiction, you can let your thoughts and emotions rip without worrying about fact-checkers. It’s the writer’s uninterrupted psyche that makes a novel real and raw. Memoirs make you consider life; novels take you out of your head and into your heart, and gut.

Thus, when I read about other well-received memoirs that turned out to be bogus; when I heard they were now banned and some of the (talented) writers’ careers ruined, I couldn’t help wondering if these writers were prodded into turning their novels into memoirs by “practical-minded” agents, editors and publishers. And even if this was not the case, were they misguided by the “practical-minded” advice of teachers, writing mentors and other literary know-it-alls?

When it comes right down to it, those literal-minded “advisors” haven’t got a clue as to how a writer - or let’s face it, an artist - thinks, and an artist writes. I’ve tried bringing this issue to the table on several occasions with letters to the Times Sunday Book Review and other publications featuring articles on the subject of “false memoirs.” In the past, I’ve always had at least one letter on a subject published, but not this time. For obvious reasons, those in power don’t want this side of the story to get out: that fiction writers are being unwisely guided down the garden path, away from their best, creative instincts.