Category: publishing

James Frey is only the latest in along string of authors and memoirists recently exposed for fabricating all or part of their supposedly non-fiction work. But how much responsibility should a publisher bear for fact-checking such works? After all, memoirs are by definition works of personal memory, and as such, are often difficult to verify. Still, some literary agents and publishers are saying that the Frey Affair has been a major wake-up call for the industry.

The publisher of Augusten Burroughs’s “Possible Side Effects: True Stories”, has added a disclaimer sticker to the book’s cover: “Author’s Note: Some of the events described happened as related, others were expanded and changed. Some of the individuals portrayed are composites of more than one person and many names and identifying characteristics have been changed as well.”

Shortly after Oprah condemned James Frey for his misrepresentations in his bestselling “Million Little Pieces”, Frey’s publisher distances itself from the author. “It is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn’t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. Mr. Frey’s repeated representations of the book’s accuracy, through publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections.”

“In a live broadcast of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” from her studios in Chicago in which she interviewed Mr. Frey, Ms. Winfrey apologized to her audience for her call to “Larry King Live” earlier this month defending the author. Today, Ms. Winfrey, alternately fighting back tears and displaying vivid anger, berated Mr. Frey for duping her and her audience.”

How did Hilary Spurling come to write her Whitbread-winning biography of Matisse? “My publisher was probably the only person in the world to realise that nobody had written a biography of Matisse and he suggested that I do it. I felt my heart leap – I assumed it had been done, and was thrilled it hadn’t. I was all wrong for it: I wasn’t an art historian, I wasn’t French and I am a woman. I thought these things would be a problem, but they helped.”

Some Seattle readers have filed a lawsuit against Doubleday and James Frey because Frey made up some of the details of his memoir. The suit “seeks compensation on behalf of consumers for ‘the lost value of the readers’ time’.”

Lynne Rae Perkins’ Criss Cross, a humorous series of vignettes, illustrations and poems about a group of small-town teenagers, has won the Newbery Medal for “the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature.”

Hilary Spurling’s biography of Matisse wins the top Whitbread. Spurling “spent 15 years writing and researching her two-part biography of the French Impressionist, was chosen over the four other Whitbread winners.”

Twenty-five buses in Pittsburgh have been covered with poems. “The poetic exteriors are the latest in the ongoing effort to make buses more visually interesting than the red-and-white affairs that transported commuters a decade ago.”

The New Leader is closing after 80 years of publication. “The New Leader has a circulation of roughly 12,000, down from a peak of about 30,000 in the late 1960’s, and like most magazines of its kind, it runs at a loss – some $400,000 a year in this case. Back in the 50’s, it was said to receive occasional support from the C.I.A., but it has been more reliably sustained by contributions from, of all places, an institute financed by Tamiment, the famous Poconos resort and proving ground for the likes of Sid Caesar and Danny Kaye.”