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’m disgusted. They should be totally ashamed, particularly ‘Moth’ (stupid name anyway) - lots of questions there about how ill he really is. I started reading the book before going to see the film, and a lot of the detail around how they lost the house was definitely skirted over in both. And to find they owned a house in France all along. They should be sued.

I didn't understand when I read the book how she could repeat conversations she'd had (with her husband and other people) when she never kept a diary.
That in itself made me suspicious.

There is dialogue and ok we can accept some of it is invented, but she relates the walk day by day and the conversations she had with 'Moth' at the end of each day.

Didn't she say she wrote it with the help of her daughter when she returned home?

Do you have a link as I can’t find it.

Me too

I drove quite a long distance to see this some time ago I’d never heard of Raynor Winn liked the music but it wasn’t really related to the sw found Raynor really irritating the read up on the book and it confirmed my irritation I hated how she was so cavalier about people trying to ruin small businesses in the sw. normally it’s the sort of film I would enjoy but was irritated about all the publicity so i feel vindicated now!!!!

They've made a killing, and seem to be long term practised grifters and criminals, so I expect they'll be fine. After all, it doesn't seem they've ever faced any real accountability for their actions.

One article by an envious lady isn’t convincing

What's she envious of? Public humiliation?

😄

It's on Latitude which I am booked to go to - a must see now. Anybody up for a flash mob !

https://www.latitudefestival.com/artists/saltlines-presented-by-gigspanner-big-band-raynor-winn/

Meh. I can never get too excited about this kind of thing. So she embellished the truth. So what?

Have you read anything? She stole from her employer - tens of thousands. She owes small businesses in the community money (i.e. she stole from them too). She didn't embellish the truth. She lied. The strong suggestion is that she lied about her husband having a terminal illness. Is this ok with you? She then gets a book published, with the premise being it was a true story, therefore she cheated the readers and the public too. And the producers of the film. And the actors. She's made people look really stupid, not to mention the harm she might have done to other people with degenerative illnesses. This is why there's anger.

Award nominated investigative journalists don't commit career suicide out of "envy". Broadsheet newspapers don't publish allegations like this (basically uncovering a public figure as a criminal) without making very, very sure of their facts and much input from their legal departments.

I imagine all involved at the Observer know far more about how "genuine" they are than you do at this point.

ETA I can't actually imagine any newspaper, however downmarket, doing this without proof.

😂😂 or maybe he’s actually one of their children dressed up to look like a dog?

I don't read any envy in that article. It's pretty damning and factual, it's not an opinion piece it's investigative journalism

It's so depressing that in a "post truth age" people think that literally everything is an opinion. No. Some things just are.

I haven’t read the book yet - although got it on my bookshelf, and have been meaning to read it - but in the film, it says she wrote the book after the walk as a birthday present for Moth, from diary entries she wrote on the walk.

Do you have proof of this?

Is anything in the book even real? Did they really go on the trek and sleep in a tent? In one of the interviews I saw Winn told a story of having abuse shouted at her in the street because she was homeless; did that even happen?

I found the book really unconvincing. I womt be seeing the film.

Christ - maybe the band will ask her not to come?

Didn't the journalist say there is more to come?

You just overlook all the thievery and deceit then?

And the posters on this thread alone that said they had family with CBD who felt pressure to walk themselves better, or felt guilty when they couldn't?

I expect that when she write the Salt Path she was expecting to make a bit of money out of it but never anticipated it would become a huge bestseller. So she could have got away with a few embellishments and lies.
Then the publishers would have offered her a deal for 2-3 more books for a lot of money which, given their precarious finances, they would have jumped at.
Getting an offer for the film rights must have felt like winning the lottery! Worth the risk that they would be exposed…
“oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive…”

One of the journalists involved has said on Insta that there's more to come this week.

I had the same feeling about the film (not yet read the book). I’m glad I went to see the film, as I really like Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, and thought they were both very good in it, and I liked the way they filmed the walk itself. There’s a running gag in the film about Moth looking like and being mistaken for Simon Armitage, which I found pretty random though 😂 Didn’t think Jason Isaacs looked much like him! Is that also in the book?