Reluctantly we offer the "latest" million little pieces involving James Frey.
Continuing its steady reporting on the fray, the New York Times shifted focus to "two main characters in the drama," Kassie Evashevski and Sean McDonald, Frey's literary agent and editor, respectively, neither of whom has spoken publicly about the matter.
Morgan Entrekin of Grove/Atlantic summed up the questions of many this way: "I want to know, where is Kassie in this? What did she know and when did she know it? And how could Sean McDonald not have had questions about this book?"
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In the Times and in this morning's Wall Street Journal, many in the business affirmed that most publishers will not be able to fact check like some newspapers and magazines, although they will, of course, be more careful in the future--at least for a while.
In the Journal, Random House's Stuart Applebaum said that verifying facts in nonfiction books would be "a very daunting challenge regardless of the economics involved" but that first-time memoirists, especially "those with highly melodramatic, uncorroborated life narratives," will be given extra scrutiny.
Similarly Wendy Strothman, an agent and former Houghton Mifflin v-p, offered the Boston Globe what she called "the smell test." Her explanation: ''With everyone I have signed up for a memoir, I have a long conversation with them before taking them on, to see if I trust them."
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And now a book gets publicity for its author's integrity: today's Times features The Ruins of California by Martha Sherrill (Penguin Press), a novel about her father, Peter Sherrill, that began as a memoir--until she stumbled onto a secret that "reflected really well on him," she said. "But it was something that just couldn't ever be put in a book." And so she re-sold the book as a novel. (Amazingly Sherrill is paying back Random House the advance for her original nonfiction book proposal.)
Continuing its steady reporting on the fray, the New York Times shifted focus to "two main characters in the drama," Kassie Evashevski and Sean McDonald, Frey's literary agent and editor, respectively, neither of whom has spoken publicly about the matter.
Morgan Entrekin of Grove/Atlantic summed up the questions of many this way: "I want to know, where is Kassie in this? What did she know and when did she know it? And how could Sean McDonald not have had questions about this book?"
---
In the Times and in this morning's Wall Street Journal, many in the business affirmed that most publishers will not be able to fact check like some newspapers and magazines, although they will, of course, be more careful in the future--at least for a while.
In the Journal, Random House's Stuart Applebaum said that verifying facts in nonfiction books would be "a very daunting challenge regardless of the economics involved" but that first-time memoirists, especially "those with highly melodramatic, uncorroborated life narratives," will be given extra scrutiny.
Similarly Wendy Strothman, an agent and former Houghton Mifflin v-p, offered the Boston Globe what she called "the smell test." Her explanation: ''With everyone I have signed up for a memoir, I have a long conversation with them before taking them on, to see if I trust them."
---
And now a book gets publicity for its author's integrity: today's Times features The Ruins of California by Martha Sherrill (Penguin Press), a novel about her father, Peter Sherrill, that began as a memoir--until she stumbled onto a secret that "reflected really well on him," she said. "But it was something that just couldn't ever be put in a book." And so she re-sold the book as a novel. (Amazingly Sherrill is paying back Random House the advance for her original nonfiction book proposal.)