Fake howard hughes biography fraud
Howard hughes biography video...
Five Fake Memoirs That Fooled the Literary World
Telling the unvarnished truth in an autobiography or memoir is no small feat. The urge to slip in embellishments or heighten a dramatic arc through exaggeration can be hard to resist, especially when aiming for a compelling life story.
Fake howard hughes biography fraud
But the past few decades have seen an increase in an entirely different category of memoir—the hoax, where the truth, if it’s even present, is of little consequence. Here are five stunning examples of literary fraud.
1.
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
The 19th-century American humorist Josh Billings once said “There are some people who are so addicted to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying” His observation might well have described writer James Frey, who fabricated large parts of his so-called memoir, A Million Little Pieces, a gritty account of his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
Though to be fair Frey had presented the book initially as a novel, publishe