More on Salt Path Revelations

[PasturesN3w]

The Salt Path and even more so, Wild Silence the second book gave me so much strength going through my divorce during lockdown. A triumph over adversity story. I purchased it on audible and listened to it many times; each rendition gave me strength.

Hearing the revelations about the Salt Path and its author Raynor Winn, is obviously so disappointing. Nothing has been proven yet of course and it’s very easy to jump on a critical/eviscerating bandwagon, but we don’t know exactly what went on yet; these are ‘claims’. The police interviewed her and didn’t take it further it seems.

However, Winn has admitted to making ‘mistakes’ in her previous employment and I think there was an NDA around sorting this out. She maintains there was a poor investment in a friend’s business, so we’ll see.

I don’t have a problem with the name change thing because plenty of authors write under a pseudonym and it’s not evidence of any wrong-doing. The CBD /Moth illness thing was addressed by Winn yesterday. He does seem to have a medical condition. I think it was a diagnosis of CBD originally, but now not so much, the letter released seems to imply it’s cardiovascular in nature. Finally, the house in France is a ruin; it’s a four walls falling down with rubble and growth on the inside. There is no running water nor electricity. The journalist admitted this. The land is not worth anything and how would the Winn’s have got to France from UK at the time, and to what end?

All in all it seems the reason for losing their home is possibly shady. Moth does have a condition. They did walk 638 miles and were penniless. The house in France is a red-herring.

I spoke with family about this story. It was pointed out that it’s STILL a very good story and why can’t that stand on its own merit, as semi autobiographical? However, I am personally sad at the revelations, it does completely change how I feel about the book.

Winn isn’t the first and won’t be the last to write semi autobiographical fiction under a different premise, without transparency. I hope she has paid her dues and made amends to her employer, if that’s what happened. I do feel though that the reaction in the media is an overreaction.

Lastly, I saw another article claiming people were ‘demanding back the price of the Salt Path’. Really? I dislike the way the couple are being ripped-apart in the media because in this country it’s ‘innocent until proven guilty’ but you’d never know this reading the articles. As long as there has been financial recompense made (if that’s what’s required) and apologies made, then the outstanding thing for me is that the public were hoodwinked. I don’t choose to take this personally however. I do think the work stands on its own merit, albeit with an entirely different premise.

Moving forwards, I wonder how many times I will listen to the Salt Path now? Honesty is a very important trait for me. My divorce was based lies and the last 10 years of my marriage was a mess of misdirection and gaslighting. I guess that’s what has happened here potentially; we’ve been mislead by The Salt Path and it isn’t a nice feeling at all. That’s where the disappointment lies for me. Nevertheless, personally I am going to give this time to play out before coming to conclusions about the book and its author.

But they were lent the money by a distant relative to pay back the amount of money she allegedly stole, so that she didn’t face criminal charges.

I wouldn’t either have a spare £100k, or feel like I wanted to lend it to a distant relative to save them from criminal charges. It’s a huge amount to borrow, and no way they would have been able to get that sum in any other way. And lending someone accused of dishonesty a big amount of money as a favour isn’t exactly a great investment - no wonder you’d want a decent interest rate and some security!

It’s more than a standard loan rate, but then it’s also a bigger sum of money than a bank would lend. And far less than a credit card rate of interest. I don’t quite see why you think it’s so shady. Would you be happy to lend a distant relative with questionable honesty £100k, to stop them potentially going to prison? It seems like a pretty big favour to me, and one that wouldn’t even be an option for most people.

The illness isn't a non-issue. She writes about how worried she is that her husband has a terrible terminal illness and may deteriorate to helplessness at any minute.

While the hospital letters released show he has a very atypical course for CBD, he's only diagnosed with CBD for want of a better term for his situation and the situation is so stable he only has annual follow up.

This is a million miles away from the experience of any other family coping with CBD.

One letter even makes it clear that when he and his wife are doing public events about the benefit of exercise, they should make it clear not to expect the same disease course as he has.

I’m sorry to hear about your medical diagnosis and that you rightly felt invested and now are very disappointed, like many of us, you feel hoodwinked by this book.

I would say again that she is innocent until proven guilty though. Parts of her story may be untrue, it doesn’t mean all of the story is a lie necessarily.

Is there validity in the work if it’s semi autobiographical? Is there still validity in the work if it’s completely made up is a wider question, especially when we were led to believe it was true.

Looking at other areas of the arts; The Blair Witch project was a film which was ‘apparently’ released online as so-called footage of horrific real-life happenings. Another example is Boris Eldagsen’ s AI generated photographic image, which he submitted to a photography competition and won. He immediately declared it was an AI generated image put forward to spark debate about AI’s place in the arts.

So many people are questioning why there are so many posts about this issue on here. I think the answer is because there is so much to say about it. Unlike the photographer, Winn did not declare the potential for fabrication. However, the old saying holds true: Don’t let reality get in the way of a good story. It’s the integrity which is making us all so frustrated.

I walked out of the film … absolute shite. Don’t understand the raving about it.

No there isn't, the posters on those threads are being truly ridiculous.
I did post initially, but it quickly became a complete witch hunt, with posters obsessively crawling over every aspect of the couple they could find on the web - one even paid to get details of (I think) Moth's father and another posted a Google pic of what they assumed was the French property.
It was like Nicola Bully all over again, with a side helping of self-righteous indignation about asking for free scones or camping without permission, which are simply beyond the pale apparently.
I pointed out that no one had claimed walking had cured Moth, name-changing was pretty common in publishing and stealing scones really was not that serious in the grand scheme of things. obvs embezzlement is a different matter.
I was not welcome

I wondered this too.

@Mirroredas198 it seems apparent now that it is a work of fiction. But up until last week it was always presented as a true, life affirming tale of a couples triumph over adversity.
The fact that it was presented as true for so long when in fact its mostly fiction is the problem - surely you can see that?

I havent read it myself but I can see why people who have now feel upset - particularly those who like the OP felt that the book somehow helped them in their own lives.

I'm so with you - how on earth has it got to 7 threads so far?

Neurological conditions can ( and do) cause cardiac issues it comes under autonomic dysfunction. I myself have a degenerative neurological condition and have heart rate issues as a result. Just as an aside. I do think they should have been much clearer sooner that his condition wasn’t progressing normally as they’ll have given some people false hope and that’s not ok.