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.

If they wanted open fields, they could have stayed at their property in France.

I'm really struggling to imagine them making the effort to walk that path now. Unless they had the idea for changing their names to more exotic ones and for her to write the book.

That tallies with what I was told recently by someone I met who said they had known the couple. We live reasonably close to the area and I had no reason to doubt the person I met.

I found the book self-indulgent.

I couldn’t finish the book, I think she came across as very narcissistic, disingenuous and unlikable.

I’ve never met anyone else who felt the same way so assumed it must be me.

Im not surprised.

And ironic that they changed their name from Walker. 🤔

@Cloudsandbeesthat was one of the episodes in the book which raised my hackles. Living in Cornwall I know that running campsites is hard, grubby work. And they stole.
happily it seemed.
ghastly.

I know that area reasonably well, and I do know people who would lend that sort of money - I wouldn't say they were loan sharks but maybe loan dolphins - especially at 18% - and they'd have a lean on the property so it would be in their favour if they didn't make the repayments.

I'm glad that I never bought their story.

To me it always sounded too far fetched and by the looks of it my gut feeling was right.

However, I also find the linked article sceptical in places.

I really enjoyed the book. I haven’t read the other two she wrote.
Absolutely fascinated by the Observer article and very interested to see how this is going to play out.
As the journalist says, it only works as a piece of literature if you can believe it.
Thank you for posting it OP.

I am surprised the publishing company didn't actually check things but maybe they just don't?

Thanks for that.

Like PPs, something always seemed off to me in how they lost their home. I thought they might be glossing over something but that's not unheard of in memoirs and I never imagined it would be anything that sinister.

I remember listening to her being interviewed on Radio 4 some years ago and the nonsense about her husband’s disease and his miraculous improvement in his health despite no medical treatment didn’t ring true. She came across as callous.

I loved the film, I thought it was a good story, but called bullshit on a "terminal" neurological condition that miraculously got better after walking for 7 months!!

I just assumed it was an indulged version of a boring story. It really crap that people were hurt.

I love a satisfying fall from grace. Maybe they can pay people back now they clearly have money!

Lots of people here who had suspicions.

I didn't. I loved the book. Enjoyed the film as a quiet, slow meditation on the joys of walking. This is very sad

If I go to see the film, I will watch it as fiction and to see the beautiful coastline. Did Raynor Winn write the whole of the original narratives? Her style is very flowery and convincing.

I was also bothered by them taking the student loan to do a teaching qualification when it was clear that "Moth" never intended to work as a teacher or repay any of the loan.

I feel rather gleeful about the news story, despite enjoying the book. Having read them all, I can confirm that 'Winn" is even more irritating in the sequels. They're still allegedly broke in the later books, but she can't do anything so commonplace as getting an actual job, as she's such a sensitive soul.

I did believe in his health getting better by walking, even though it became a very repetitive device through the sequels. Medical ignorance on my part.

My book club read this, but I couldn't get past yhe first chapter; I found it self indulgent and not believable, and the two protagonists came across as unlikeable.

The truth will out.

I feel rather gleeful about the news story

I'm glad it's not just me!

Whilst I had doubts, I never imagined anything like this.

I wonder what else will come out.

That’s the thing isn’t it? If it had been presented as a piece of fiction, fine. But it very much wasn’t. Even more so latterly with all the One Show interviews and the like!
our local cinema had the ‘Wynns’ as guests with a Q&A with Mark Kermode and Jason Isaacs. Lovely event for a really fantastic independent cinema.

But everyone who went will he viewing those first person accounts of ‘real events’ quite differently now I think.

Me too. When the first book came out and my sister was raving about it (despite also saying the author did not come across as a very nice person), I distinctly remember being put off buying it because I read or heard something questioning the veracity of it - it definitely had the whiff of manipulative BS attached to it from the beginning.

I never did read the book as it isn’t my chosen literary genre…….certainly won’t be wasting time and money watching the film now though.

Really interesting article.

I didn't enjoy the book. I don't remember much about it apart from thinking it wasn't very well written and being really annoyed by them staying on a campsite without paying, and feeling very smug about it. There was a sense of entitlement that grated throughout.

For a more heartwarming story about survival against the odds, can I recommend Maurice and Marilyn by Sophie Elmhirst. It's a remarkable story about a couple adrift on a liferaft for 118 days.

What an excellent piece of journalism that article is. So much that is written now is repurposed tat, this was an absolute gem of a piece

Unfortunately, we do have experience of business collapse and being very close to losing our home so I was really interested in this story.
After watching the film, the things that stood out for us were:

1. Like others said, the way they lost their home was glossed over massively. We thought the liklihood of a judge disallowing their mitigating evidence because it was too late being filed was unlikely given the magnitude of the potential loss of their home.
2. Why were they not working? We assumed they had worked for the friends' business so had lost their jobs when it went under. There did not seem any suggestion that the farmhouse was a working farm. What was their income?
3. The children being gaily waved off to university and/or overseas. Where did the money come for to fund that? Even if they got max loans, it is unlikely there would not have to make some contribution

I couldn't comment on Moth's illness because I don't know anything about it, but because we have to a certain extent been in their shoes, those stuck out for us.

Part of my job is giving books to Reading groups.

One group who read this book said they were sceptical about some of the details in it.

Seems like they were right.

Yes, I’m always sceptical when I hear or read that somebody "lost everything". There’s always a back story. I never read the book for that reason.