To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The real Salt Path: how the couple behind a bestseller le...

I read Raynor Winn's book The Salt Path and her other two books. I was looking forward to seeing the film at some point and to reading her next book. I felt sorry to read about the challenges the couple had faced, especially with regard to losing their family home and with Moth's health. Now, having read the article in today's Observer, I feel a bit stunned and am not sure what to think.

I know, but nowhere near as much as from copies of the book though.

I remember thinking the were many gaps in the hows and whys of how they got.into their situation.If they are that bad with money they won't keep what they have now, it will all go .

I started the book, thought the whole ‘losing’ the house thing didn’t smell right, came here to see if anyone else thought the same and, thank you MN, home of healthy scepticism, there was a thread with a lot of people saying the same. I stopped reading. The Observer piece is no surprise. Sally and Tim is it? Lol.

Same. Like others I thought there was something a bit off about the court case but bought the line they couldn't talk about it & also thought that even if they weren't completely innocent everyone makes mistakes.

I also thought Moth had probably been misdiagnosed.

Liked the fact they were two old, naive hippies who meant well and fell for it hook line & sinker!

I immediately thought Spare - but apparently a ghostwriter got paid a million quid to come up with that deluded fantasy of woe and weirdness.

As @PermanentTemporary said upthread,

I think what people do when they face losing a life they feel they’re entitled to is really interesting.

But in terms of gut feelings around passages of text, I'm plumping instead for Oprah. Outsiders include Becoming by Michelle Obama or The Woman in Me by Britney Spears.

If you feel strongly about supporting a pair of thieves, I've urge everyone who's bought it to ask for a refund from wherever they bought it as it's been mis-advertised and therefore mis-sold.
Amazon has 'raised a ticket ' for me as my Kindle purchase is outside the 14 day returns window.

Completely agree. The dishonesty is wrong and dangerous. The whole thing is loathsome and so cynical.

I was completely taken in and thought that everyone who was suspicious was just being a big old meanie.

In my defense, I've never seen her interviewed. I just watched a couple of her interviews in the Observer video piece that accompanies the article and I can see exactly what people are talking about that she comes across as very insincere and shifty. Easy to spot that now though with the benefit of hindsight. In general I am quite trusting and perhaps not a good judge of character, sadly.

They will have to put the books in the fiction section now. Or the bin. Clearly Penguin did no due diligence on this pair. Feel like demanding a refund!

Will do!

Do it! I'll update on what Amazon's reponse to my refund request is.

For me it was the story of the judge not accepting critical evidence that they produced at the last minute. It was so obviously bullshit.

I've read some of the reviews on GoodReads. A fair number of reviewers thought it was tripe and dishonest.

I'm not surprised tbh.

I read the first book some years ago, and my overall summary of it, even back then, was "self-indulgent tripe."
Then, "You're both adults, stop being so wet."

I’d say there’ll be a case about this, it is strange it’s one article especially as such a large publisher published it and it being a film, you’d guess they’d have checked it out so this may be a case that this article may not be totally true either, as someone said wouldn’t the daily mail have grabbed for it? We honestly can’t believe anything anymore

I read this for my book club. From the outset I thought they had probably made some foolish decisions and she was blaming other people rather than taking responsibility. I was a bit cynical about the book and some people seemed to think I was being miserable not to find it uplifting. Now it turns out that they may be criminal or at least very dishonest.I’m not completely surprised.

I was going to it say reminds me of Jack Monroe.

On X or Twitter
https://x.com/observeruk/status/1941738885106872782?s=46&t=pln5Z6rGtqgzRm0aM4pGKQ

The journalist who wrote this for the Observer has great form with this kind of investigative stuff. The paper too has a mission to investigate.

The Mail just doesn’t compare. So not strange at all.

Yes, I had that argument with my book groupers too. In fact only the other day when someone mentioned seeing the film how heart-warming it was I said 'But Moth was supposed to be terminally ill and unable to walk, so why did she drag him hundreds of miles along a coastal footpath?' She got very angry about not all terminal illnesses being immediately terminal, and not all disabilities being visible and that life itself is a terminal condition.

What bothers me is that so many people didn't pick up on it. There are an awful lot of people who seem susceptible to anyone with a hard luck story, people who will accept practically anything they're told. It's dangerous. As one of those who has spent the last few years trying to remind everyone that humans can't change sex and that transwomen are men, it concerns me deeply that some people would rather be kind but wrong (and thus enable all kinds of terrible things to happen) rather than right but unpopular.

Interesting is the reviews on amazon back in 2020 are suspect at times and also can't understand why the book is so popular

check out the 1 star reviews

Siltone makes some interesting points

A Grain of Salt Path…

I just looked on the Storygraph app and someone has already updated their review with a link to the Observer article

Shocking how many people loved it primarily because they felt it was an honest account though.

Brava, Chloe Hadjimatheou, lovely work 👏.

And it clearly took months to do - I guess Penguin would find it too expensive to do that sort of research on every book they publish. But I imagine they have a clause in their contract about good faith that it IS true? In which case, they win-win - they'll have made loads from the books and the film rights, and they could probably sue the Walkers for their money back...

I guess a minimal number of people would ask for a refund, but the real loss is to have had their faith in humanity dented a little more... or maybe it's a worthwhile lesson...

This is such an important point that you and other posters with illnesses and disabilities are making.

On a day when The Telegraph is claiming that people are getting PIP 'for acne and writer's cramp' (spoiler: no they are not - The Telegraph has simply regurgitated the garbage of DWP data collection coding errors), it's more important than ever that narratives around illness are truthful.

It's a bit heartbreaking that the supposedly redemptive genres of literature and film are being used to feed into a malevolent political undercurrent.

And surprise, surprise; it's the 'chin up' culture that is the grift, not the lives of people with illnesses.