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Greetings
literary voyeurs,
We here
at the Hipster Book Club present for you, this month, our
memoir issue. Because we are an unstoppable juggernaut of
efficiency, the plan to do an issue with a memoir spotlight
was put into motion months ago, to give us time to read memoirs,
write reviews, edit these reviews, shrink down pictures of
the covers of the memoirs, lay them out on a webpage in an
aesthetically pleasing way, etc. Then, in a turn of events
that reflects very poorly on the literary world (but worked
out great for us), it turns out every memoir ever written
is a lie. O.K., that's a lie, too. But at least two memoirs
in one week were proven fraudulent. But, if you round up a
lot, that's all of them.
In case
you missed the stories, I'll recap our latest Frey-esque offenders.
First up, we have Margaret Seltzer (under the pseudonym Margaret
B. Jones). Her memoir, Love and Consequences: A Memoir
of Hope and Survival is about the author's "experiences
growing up as a half white, half Native American foster child
and 'Bloods' gang member in South Central Los Angeles." Seltzer
promoted the book through various radio appearances, referring
to her "home girls" and experiences running drugs for the
Bloods. Then, to Seltzer's chagrin, her sister Cyndi found
out about the book, and felt compelled to tell Seltzer's publisher
that she is not part Native American but rather fully white,
was never in the Bloods, never ran drugs, went to an Episcopalian
high school in North Hollywood, and grew up in Sherman Oaks
(which, for those of you far away from Southern California,
does not resemble South Central Los Angeles a whole heck of
a lot).
It seems
quite the ballsy move, though. I can't imagine getting away
with writing a similar story. Kyle: My Life in Gangs
wouldn't last too long. I'd have high school friends showing
up at Random House's door with Dungeons & Dragons character
sheets saying, "How could Kyle have been in the Crips and
successfully played a level 18 Elven ranger? That just doesn't
make sense!" To her credit, though, the book was reviewed
by Michiko Kakutani as a "humane and deeply affecting memoir."
 While
Seltzer was found out the same week her book was published,
the next memoir victim had a bit more of a successful run.
Misha Defonseca wrote Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust
Years and published it in 1997 (years after she left Europe
and moved to Massachusetts with her husband). It was translated
into 18 languages, became a bestseller, and was made into
a movie in France. Misha tells the story of a young
Jewish girl who has her parents taken away during World War
II and is placed with a cruel Catholic foster family. She
then escapes, looking for her parents, and lives with wolves.
She survives by eating worms and offal, sneaks in and out
of the Warsaw Ghetto, kills Nazi rapists, and so on.
I'm sure
you've guessed that Misha Defonseca did not live with wolves
and eat offal. That is ridiculous. She was born Catholic,
though her parents were killed during WWII for being
resistance fighters, but that's where similarities end. Oddly
enough, even with a real-life story that is still probably
light years more exciting than our own (I grew up with a dad
who sold meat for Hormel, not one who died fighting Hitler),
she still felt the need to make up an even more outlandish
story. Raised by wolves? Really? But Defonseca still managed
to sell the story and have a pretty good run. She probably
took longer to call-out because, well, who wants to call bullshit
on a Holocaust survivor, right? Not to mention that her book
was written 50 years after the fact in a different part of
the world. Moral of the story: wait until most of the Holocaust
survivors have died before you appropriate their hardships
for profit.
Both
women had "reasons" for lying. Seltzer claimed that she had
an "opportunity to put a voice to people who people don't
listen to." On one hand, attempting to educate on the plight
of a certain group is admirable. But on the other hand, affecting
a gang member vernacular and calling people "homies" to accomplish
that goal is so mind-blowingly detestable, it defies thought.
Defonseca's defense was as glorious a piece of fiction as
her "memoir," stating "The book is a story, it's my story.
It's not the true reality, but it's my reality. There are
times when I find it difficult to differentiate between reality
and my inner world." Ma'am, if you can't tell the difference
between living in Massachusetts and living with wolves, you
may need to join my grandma in the home. Sorry.
But,
I suppose they were just trying to sell as sensationalistic
a story as possible. Memoirs, in my opinion, are about voyeurism.
They're about watching people do dangerous, embarrassing,
exciting, heroic, or idiotic things from the comfort of one's
reading chair. So, as a favor to the site, I am going to provide
you a couple of very real, embarrassing (to varying degrees)
true stories about myself to tide you over while every memoir
is being unmasked as fake. It is literary peeping tom-ism
at its finest.
1.
Recently, I have attacked my weight loss and getting in
shape with renewed vigor. Things are going very well, and
I've begun setting more goals as I've discovered they help
me make the process more concrete and attainable. While
researching tools, I came across a page on the internet
called the "Éowyn Challenge." Some enterprising individual
took his or her time, love of literature, and skill in cartography
to discern the various distances traveled by the Hobbits
in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. You too, via internet,
can attempt to traverse the same distances Frodo and his
companions undertook. In an effort to make the goal more
visual, I printed up an enlarged map of Middle Earth on
which to trace my path and progress. Only after I had printed,
taped together, and hung the poster did I realize I now
had, in my bedroom, at the age of 26, what my friend Shazia
called a "mythical tracking map." My self-image of cool
was momentarily shaken, to put it mildly.
2.
When I was ten or 11, my friend John Binder came over after
school one day. In an effort to entertain ourselves, we
invented a "game" where we would each take turns riding
my little one-speed bike up and down the street past my
house while the other would attempt to throw a rolling pin
into the spokes. The rules of the game were fairly nebulous,
though the object of the game was clear. When my wheels
locked and I flew face-first into the street, I'm pretty
sure I "lost." Though, as mentioned, the rules were never
really laid down, so we really can't be sure. Honestly,
I don't consider this my finest moment.
3.
During my junior year of college, my roommates and I went
to a party held at one roommate's girlfriend's apartment
in Irvine, California (safest city in America). I was to
be the designated driver that evening. This, of course,
meant I could still do bong rips in my car with everyone
before we went to the party. When we entered, one of our
coworkers was there, already wasted, and it was becoming
increasingly clear that he was not a pleasant drunk. An
hour or two later, the hostess taps me on the shoulder.
"Kyle, you gotta get this guy out of here. He's wasted and
pissing off the wrong fucking people." Sure. C'mon. Let's
go. As we exit the party, this drunken gentleman screams
at the top of his lungs, "BYE EVERYBODY!" because it was
clear he thought it clever to do so. A rather large, muscular
gentleman wearing a "do-rag" screams back, "Hey man, shut
the fuck up!" to which my drunken charge fires back the
eternally witty, "Why don't you shut the fuck up?"
With a sense of self preservation honed to a razor's edge,
I begin to take a couple steps back, distancing myself from
my young partier. This proves to be a sound idea because,
with an efficiency and speed that I still boggle over today,
two carloads of muscular guy's friends pull up. They all
jump out of their respective vehicles and begin to beat
the living shit out of the guy I'm supposed to be driving
home. He fights to get up and defend himself, unaware of
just how badly he is being beaten. The thugs jump back into
their vehicles because they, like I, know that when a dude
gets the shit kicked out of him in the safest city in America,
at midnight, while a college party is getting too loud upstairs,
the cops are going to be there at any second.
At this point, my passenger begins to vomit all over himself
as I attempt to hurry his not-old-enough-to-legally-drink
ass to my car. He is railing and cursing and angry as hell
about the beating he just received and the "coward motherfuckers"
who just drove off. Then he starts to cry. I get him in
the car and begin to leave. When I turn the corner, four
carloads of police officers are exiting their vehicle and
descending on the party. Meanwhile, I have a drunk, bloody,
vomit-covered minor in my passenger seat, I'm high, my car
smells like pot, and there's a bong in the back. A quick
U-turn delivers us from peril, and I eventually discern
where the drunk fellow lives after a lengthy Q and A period
that I don't think either of us was following especially
well. I vowed to never go to a party ever again.
Anyway.
Thanks for coming back to read our site. We have plenty of
great memoir reviews, not to mention plenty of other reviews
of new releases, some old gems, and some complete and utter
bullshit. Hopefully you'll still respect us in the morning.
<3,
Kyle
P.S.
Please bear in mind that today is April 1, so I wouldn't put
too much credence into everything you read here today. We're
capable of taking artistic liberties with our personal stories,
as well, right? So…you know….don't do drugs and stay in school.
Deal?
(April,
2008)
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