There have been many examples of phoney memoirs published in the last few years. It seems that:

1. Publishers aren't asking enough questions.

2. Some writers want the greater publicity that their 'true story' gives them, rather than risking the obscurity of fiction writing.

3. Other writers have psychological problems and blend truth and fiction often, not just when they write.

4. Readers lap up love true tales of suffering.

There needs to be some due diligence done before some of these memoirs are rushed into print. Readers have a right to expect non-fiction to be just that.

To paraphrase the film Outrageous Fortune. "Writers are just bullsh**ters who get paid." Sometimes that really is true. And the bigger the BS, the more it needs the imprimatur of 'the true story' to ensure a big pay day.

Cheers.

Good points jeng.

Other memoirs which deserve to be outed as fakes include "Kathy's Story" (subject of a critical study by Irish journalist Hermann Kelly) and "Burned Alive". One is the story of a survivor of a Magdalene laundry and the other the story of a survivor of an honor killing - and both are phoney.