Martha Beck and Other Authors

My favourite reads have always been biographies and autobiographies and I think it stems from my school days and searching for acceptable reads to add to my personal list of books read when in matric.  I remember scouring the bookshelves of my parents home and picking out a few books, all of which were biographies.  I remember one was 'Piaf' about Edith Piaf the French singer, another was 'The Spirit in the Cage' by Peter Churchill and 'Reach for the Sky' by Paul Brickhill - the story of Douglas Bader.

I like to read about other people, not necessarily famous people, but 'real' people who have achieved something, gone through something or just have a story to be told and I have over the years collected many of these books to add to all my fiction books.

At the moment I am reading 'Leaving the Saints' by Martha Beck, a book written about her recollection of being molested by her father and wanting him to admit it to her after many years of suppressed memories.  It is intertwined with other past stories and her life growing up in the Mormon community in Utah.  This is not a blog about a book review though but rather to say that after reading about half way through the book, for whatever reason I don't know, I decided to Google her.  I discovered that she writes a column for 'O' Magazine, has written many other books (one of which is Expecting Adam, which I read some years ago), is a lecturer and after many years of marriage and 3 children, both she and her husband both discovered they are gay.  Most interesting....but this isn't even the reason for this blog either....on reading further I discovered a number of articles that refute facts written in both the book I am reading as well as Expecting Adam, her previous autobiography.  Not just one person but a number of people say that she has fictionalized some of what she has written which puts everything in it now as unbelievable.  Having read all these articles, I'm now not sure if I want to continue reading the book, because what I first thought was fact, I now read as fiction.

However this isn't the first book that I have read that, after reading it, have discovered it to be a whole lot of hooey.  Some years ago, when we still had DSTV (satellite television), I saw an interview with a chap called James Frey on the Oprah show.  He was talking about his biography - A Million Little Pieces, and I was fascinated by his story...how he had lived as a drug addict and later cleaned himself up and became a changed person.  I was interested enough to buy his book when I saw it in our local book shop and read it with awe.  Imagine my shock and dismay when a few years down the line, there he was on Oprah again...this time apologizing to her and the rest of the world for his book which as it turned out was not an autobiography, but a fictitious story written based on his life as both an alcoholic and drug addict.  It doesn't end here though...remember the books written by Lance Armstrong - It's Not About The Bike and Every Second Counts...well I've read them both, admired him for his strength and endurance, only to be once more dismayed to hear and read that he couldn't have achieved what he did if it wasn't for a particular drug he used during those years of competition.....something he didn't deem necessary to mention!!!!

So you see, I am becoming somewhat disillusioned by these books that are written by people who claim them to be true when in fact they are not.  Why do people feel the need to fabricate and/or embellish their stories, it just makes no sense to me, but I am very disappointed in the way that they do it and then deny, deny, deny, and when exposed, they eventually decide to admit to being a fraud...what message is it sending to the next generation and where will it leave our history???????