Talk:Fake memoir

Sleepers

Should the book "Sleepers" appear here? There is much debate on whether the book is non fiction or not. I think it should at least be mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.215.153.107 (talk) 10:28, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that Sleepers, which claims to tell a true story should be here as it is quite a tall tale and anyhow there does not seem to be any evidence backing it up, but one needs a RS saying that. If happen to know a RS or better yet, several RS saying that Sleepers is fiction, please include it. My opinion is not enough to warrant including Sleepers. --A.S. Brown (talk) 00:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I was just reorganizing the list and noticed the entry for Sleepers because it was out of date order. I noted the following:

• The entry in the list was really weak - had only one source and also stated that the book contained some real names and details, with other aspects fictionalized, but did not describe in detail. If it has at least some true elements, and moreover is still in the Library of Congress classified as non-fiction as stated currently on the Lorenzo Carcaterra article, then it's not proven to be a "fake memoir" yet, in contrast to the vast majority of books on the list that have been proven to be fake, have been reclassified as "fiction" by their publishers, and/or have had their authors admit they made it all up (Carcaterra still insists the book is true, to my knowledge).
• Lorenzo Carcaterra's main article has almost no detail or sources going to this issue, and there currently doesn't seem to be a Wiki article for the novel (only for the film, which is not the same thing as you expect Hollywood to fictionalize for dramatic license). So there wasn't any handy source support or discussion to pull from in putting an entry here.
• There's a possible BLP issue putting Carcaterra's book in a list of proven literary hoaxes without decent source support. The entry for Sleepers had only one article cited, and was not written in NPOV. There are a bunch more articles out there discussing this. If there's going to be an entry for Sleepers it would have to be a lot stronger than that.

Therefore, for all the preceding reasons, I took it out. If someone wants to put it back in (in the correct chronological place) they would first need to do a lot more research and find more articles and sources supporting certain aspects being fabricated (as opposed to just the author changing some names to protect people). Also, the entry would need to make clear exactly what is being questioned since it seems likely there are some true details in the book, so it can't be dismissed as a complete fiction. TheBlinkster (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Oprah comment in lead

I have restored the comment about two of the recent fake memoir authors having appeared, and been promoted, on the Oprah show. Even though this is mentioned -- separately -- in the summaries of the individual books, it is worth bringing these two events together and summarizing them in the lead paragraph. The fact that Oprah has gone down this path twice has been commented on many times in the press & online. Ecphora (talk) 01:00, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

"Published" vs "Unpublished"

User:Hundredhour has been editing this page to remove the discussion of Angel at the Fence because he claims it was not "published" and therefore is not a "fake memoir". In fact, the book was in fact published and printed advance copies were circulated for review. See The Greatest Love Story Ever Sold, The New Republic, where it is stated "I received an advance copy before Penguin decided to pull it." More importantly, this article isn't titled "Published Fake Memoirs" and a Fake Memoir, whether or not officially published, is appropriately included. Indeed, it is perverse to leave out this one which received as much publicity as any of them, and readers would expect to see it here. Ecphora (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The fact that advanced copies of the book existed does not mean it was published; on the contrary, the copies were “advanced” precisely because they predated publication. And of course this article is not titled “published fake memoirs” because that would be redundant, as by definition, a memoir must be published because a first person written account is only a memoir if its published as non-fiction. Lots of lies receive publicity but that doesn’t make them memoirs because a memoir is a genre of literature. That fact that some people might expect to see this story listed as a fake memoir no more proves that it is one then the fact that some people mistakenly expect to see bats included in a list of rodents proves that bats are rodents or justifies them being listed as such. Further, I think it’s a credit to the publisher that they never in fact published this story as a memoir and thus it’s misleading for them to be lumped in with publishers who did publish fake memoirs. If we start including non-published first person accounts, then we open the flood gates to any biographical lie that anyone has ever wrote down or typed ranging from fake letters, fake stories written by high school students, dishonest emails etc. Such over inclusion is an unfair smear against the memoir genre, an insult to all the hard work that goes into screening memoirs and an insult to all the honest authors who did not fabricate their stories and ultimately makes for an ambiguous, misleading non-neutral unfocused article. Hundredhour (talk) 15:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You are inventing definitions of words and then using your personal definitions to remove significant portions of this article, text which many other editors have worked on. There is simply no requirement that the article be limited to "published" memoirs. But even if it were, Angel at the Fence was in fact printed and distributed to many persons. Yet, you decide in your own mind that that somehow doesn't count as "published." There was massive publicity about that book as an example of a fake memoir and readers will look for it here; yet you remove it because it doesn't fit your own personal definition. You also remove, without any rationale or explanation, important text about fake memoirs being showcased on Oprah's show, another fact given massive publicity that readers will expect to see here. The effect of this is very disruptive to this article. You are a brand new editor on Wikipedia; if you want to pursue this you should see what other editors have to say about this before undoing significant parts of this article.Ecphora (talk) 02:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Institute for Historical Review

The Institute for Historical Review is a notorious Holocaust denying outfit and a fundamentally unreliable source. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 54#Institute for Historical Review. Please do not insert material into this article based on it. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:12, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I restored the deleted material with non-controversial sources. Please do not delete material without checking to see if there are valid sources for it. Ecphora (talk) 02:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The new sources are fine. In the future, before reverting, please review WP:BURDEN. Thanks! Jayjg ^(talk) 02:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't mean to be contentious, but I had no idea that you removed the material because IHR was suspect; if you had said that, I would not have reverted. Also WP:BURDEN observes that "Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them". In any event, thank you for helping to clean this article up. Ecphora (talk) 03:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I should have been more clear in my edit summary, my apologies. Thank you for finding good sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:16, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Lead Paragraph

The four lists in the lead paragraph (i.e., Five of the memoirs, Three of the memoirs, Two of the memoirs, and Two of the authors) are distracting. The wording is ambiguous and the lists provide no information to further reader understanding of the topic. In fact, only the first three sentences of the lead paragraph, plus the short second and third paragraphs, provide any information. The remainder of the article is a list books that may be fake memoirs. If there is a need to further sub-categorize the list of books (e.g., "books praised by the New York Times before being exposed"), then that sub-categorization should be moved to an introductory paragraph under the heading "List of fake memoirs and journals". Kudos to Ecphora for developing this article. BillyPreset (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. That material could be removed entirely, but as editors have spent some time on it, I moved it to a new section per your suggestion. BTW, thank you for the compliment. Ecphora (talk) 20:26, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Thieves of Manhattan

Is Adam Langer's novel worth mentioning here? 129.69.206.184 (talk) 07:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Self publshed novel

Several editors, the latest being User:Muchness User talk:Muchness, have removed the reference to "Daddy, an Absolutely Authentic Fake Memoir," because it is "self-published." This fact does not justify its removal. See the following discussion which I have copied from my talk page" Ecphora (talk) 00:36, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi-- I removed mention of a self-published book in Fake memoirs, per WP guidelines-- why did you revert it? Besides the fact that it is self-published, I'm concerned that it may be self-promotion, as the user's [[1]] only concern the self-published title (oh, with one other spelling correction). mordicai. (talk) 15:47, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Someone else originally added that reference which I felt on balance contributed to the article. It does not violate WP Policy, however, because it is not cited as a source for facts in the book, but rather for the fact that such book has been published, which is permitted. See Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves ("Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves…") Ecphora (talk) 16:22, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

My opinion is that without any coverage in reliable, independent sources, this is a non-notable work of no encyclopedic value. As such, I feel that it doesn't warrant a mention in the article until it receives coverage in independent sources that establish it as a significant publication in the field of fake memoirs. I've searched and can't find any references in reliable, independent sources. But I'll start an RFC below and see if we can get some feedback from interested parties. --Muchness (talk) 15:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Should the self-published novel Daddy, an Absolutely Authentic Fake Memoir be mentioned in the article? It has been added, removed and added back by several editors. See also the previous discussion at Talk:Fake memoirs#Self publshed novel. --15:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

The mention of the book "Daddy, an Absolutely Fake Memoir" was first removed because it was "self-published." As explained above, that is not a valid reason to remove it because it is not cited as a source for facts in the book, but for the fact that the book exists. Now, an objection is raised that the book should not be mentioned because it is not "notable." This also is incorrect. While notability applies to the inclusion of an article, it expressly does not apply to content within the article/list. See Wikipedia:Notability#Notability guidelines do not limit content within an article:

"The criteria applied to article content are not the same as those applied to article creation. The notability guidelines do not apply to article or list content (with the exception that some lists restrict inclusion to notable items or people). Content coverage within a given article or list is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies. ..."

Here, I believe the fact that this book has been published as a parody of the Fake Memoir problem is of significant enough interest to readers to include it. Ecphora (talk) 16:53, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Without commenting on the issue too much at hand, the statement "The memoir scandals inspired the satiric novel, Daddy-An Absolutely Authentic Fake Memoir, by Andrea Troy, published in the fall of 2008." has no reference to back up the fact that the scandals inspired the creation of the novel. As for the sentence itself, reading the article, it just does not seem to fit in the section it is in. The section is titled Initial public successes where all except this sentence discusses the successes of some fake memoirs. This sentence does not seem to fit into this section, as it has nothing to do with initial successes, it rather deals with a book that was created as a result of the successes of the fake memoirs and the aftermath after it was revealed they were fakes. If anywhere at all, it may belong in the List of fake memoirs and journals section, with details of the book, similar to other listings on the page. I just can't see why it's listed in the successes section when it doesn't belong there at all. It adds nothing to the paragraph, and the topics the paragraph discusses. Might belong in the "List of fake memoirs section", but not in the section it presently is in. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 15:08, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I removed it in the first place-- I don't think a self-published book is notable, & I suspect that the account that added it in the first place is using Wikipedia as free advertising space for their personal project, since that is...pretty much the entirety of their edits. It seems awkwardly shoe horned into the article & I don't know that it adds anything. mordicai. (talk) 19:01, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

As I pointed out above, notability is not a requirement for inclusion within an article, so that does not justify removing it. However, I now agree it should be removed (and I will do so after this comment). There are four "reviews" for it on amazon.com. All four read suspiciously alike; three are by persons who submitted no other reviews and all end with exclamation points. This does look like b.s. And that does justify removing it. Ecphora (talk) 23:10, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I removed a similar addition on Randy Cohen for the same reasons given here. mordicai. (talk) 16:49, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Obama's Dreams From My Father

Any objection to adding Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama to this article? See an interview regarding the new book by David Maraniss of the Washington Post. Wookian (talk) 02:04, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Of course it would be a WP:POV violation to use Wikipedia to make such a politically charged assertion as if it were an established fact. Since it is not an established fact, it would be WP:UNDUE to state "X claimed it's fake". Obama wrote the book in 1995, and just a few months before the next election someone has claimed something bad. What a surprise. However, a little more is needed for an encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 04:23, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

So you are saying that David Maraniss is not a RS because you feel he is an anti-Obama political operative? I hadn't heard that view before -- can you explain why you feel that way? It was my understanding that he is more on the politically liberal side of the spectrum, and I'm not aware that his new biography was intended as a political attack on the president. Wookian (talk) 11:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Your reply is not related to what I actually wrote. Obama's book existed for 17 years with no one suggesting it was fake. Wikipedia does not breathlessly record every recent claim as a fact—this article lists books for which it is established that the memoir is a fake. This article does not list books which one author has recently claimed are fake. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—and that cannot happen until multiple secondary sources have analyzed the claims against a study of the book. Johnuniq (talk) 11:52, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Some of the examples here should not be here

Some of the examples posted as pseudo-memoirs (which by the way would actually be a better title for this article) should not be here. The Hitler Diaries were a pseudo-diaries, not a pseudo-memoir, which are a different thing. Likewise, the Hitler Diaries were not a "crude fakes", and nor were they written on modern paper (the glue that used to do them together was quite modern). They were written by a man, Konrad Kujau who for reasons understandable only to himself took to doing his hand-writing in the same style as Hitler, and got to be quite good at it. The same goes for China Under the Empress Dowager, which to begin with was only co-written by Sir Edmund Backhouse, and purports to be a work of history, not a memoir. It is true that the supposed diary, upon much of China Under the Empress Dowager is a forgery by Backhouse, but that book does claim to be a memoir. Finally, the fact that Muhammad Ali and/or his ghost-writer Richard Durham manufactured the story about throwing the Olympic gold medal into the river does make the entire book a work of fiction. If that were the case, then a great many of the memoirs that have published over the years would have to be included here. There seems to be some confusion here. Just because a memoirist invents things in his or her memoirs does not mean that the book can be classified as a pseudo-memoir. Sir Anthony Eden's third volume of memoirs The Eden Memoirs: Full Circle gives a highly misleading at best, and in many places a downright false version of his actions before, during and after the Suez War of 1956, yet that memoir, packed through with lies as it is (notably Eden's claim that he not plan to attack Egypt with France and Israel, something that many people even in 1956 found very hard to believe) is not considered to be a pseudo-memoir. If nobody objects, I would to clear this list out of the examples that should not be there.--A.S. Brown (talk) 00:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I started this article. I think that the title "Fake memoirs" is appropriate as that is what these books are most commonly called. I agree with you that editors have questionably added many works where only a chapter or a few minor statements are suspect. Those can and should be removed. The "Hitler Diaries" are not technically memoirs, but they are close enough and well known enough to deserve some mention here. Perhaps those could be handled in a See Also section. If you would like to clean this up, please do so. Also when you do, can you arrange the works in reverse chronological order so that the most recent books are first? Ecphora (talk) 00:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't overly hair-split. It's entirely normal for us to combine only slightly different topics into one article, and redirect the alternative name here. "Journal" (in the personal sense) and "diary" would be a very good candidate for this treatment. Just write the lead broadly enough to cover both. The word "and" can do wonders. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:40, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

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Requested move 2 June 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 19:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

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Fake memoirs → Fake memoir – Per WP:SINGULAR; this is not an inherently plural title any more than is Novel or Hoax (unlike Counterfeit consumer goods, which is virtually never encountered without the -s). Lead sentence will need a post-move tweak.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:40, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Johnbod (talk) 01:53, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
• Support but it should have just been moved, as there's no reason to think it might be controversial and the target is open. Dicklyon (talk) 05:17, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

  I would tend to agree, but some people have been barking at me about manual moves again lately, so I'm back to using lengthy process until they wander back into the wikiwoods. And we do have some pluralized or formerly pluralized titles about which people have argued at length, so it seemed a better-safe-than-sorry case to me.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:04, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

  Yes, when in any doubt it's better to do this. Johnbod (talk) 14:45, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

  As a some-time barker, I appreciate the discussion but agree with User:Dicklyon. Support per nom. —  AjaxSmack  15:01, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support --Jaldous1 (talk) 17:04, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Terminology

Is the use of 'recent' in the header section appropriate - as the timeframe changes. Jackiespeel (talk) 11:08, 29 November 2023 (UTC)