Thread 3: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The Observer The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

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Thread 2 Thread 2. To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

I think publishers do have to be wary of publishing books that make profoundly false health claims.
Maybe as a minimum books of that nature need to be regulated.

So they are liars, grifters and con artists then? Tbh there was a lot of them about over the past decade. …Jack Monroe springs to mind . As does Roadside Mum and many more.

I think all you can do is take what you want from the book if you’ve read it (I haven’t and now won’t).

Take it all with a pinch of salt (sorry) and just accept they have been very economical with the truth.

It’s a really interesting discussion

Also, it’s not yet clear whether the publishers will pay any penalty.

Even if they decide to pull the next book, they won’t be returning the profits made from the first three.

Raynor Winn had advance notice of this coming out in The Observer on Sunday. She was given the opportunity to respond.

It's now Tuesday and still nothing concrete has come from the Winns/Walkers to refute the claims.

If there were no truth in the Observer investigation, it would have been very easy for Raynor and her PR team to put together a robust rebuttal, as they would have paperwork and witnesses to go on record for them.

If 'Moth' does indeed have CBD - that could be very easily proven by getting his doctor to say 'With the family's permission, I can confirm that Tim Walker is my patient here at X hospital, he has been my patient for X years, and has a diagnosis of CBD.' Accompanied by a picture of the doctor with Tim at the hospital. If I were a doctor who had been treating a patient for 10+ years and been impressed by their ability to outlive the odds, I'd be outraged at the suggestion that they were faking it and keen to defend them.

The other claims are more challenging because there may well not be paperwork to refute them - but if your reputation and career are on the line, you find the evidence and you get it out there, pronto.

The reality is, no one has come forward to defend them and they don't seem to have anything they can offer that disproves anything the Observer has said about them.

As such, the silence from Raynor Winn's side speaks volumes.

Papillon is a great book and now 2 movies purporting to be true - I enjoyed all 3 but apparently he made a lot of it up or 'stole' other's experiences. Do I care - no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papillon_(book)

How could they? It’s impossible.

I'm wondering about Moth's diagnosis. In the book, doesn't she say something about the diagnosis being 'vague'?

I wonder if it might have been that the condition was mentioned as something Moth might have and then they have jumped on that, as I have read it is a condition which can only be properly diagnosed at autopsy?

Salt Path author dropped by charity as questions raised over story

https://www.thetimes.com/article/a007fb1d-df3f-45e7-981c-e408e6ecc77e?shareToken=5a1897f42694a0655e9878dc1bc51544

Whatever you want to call it, the publishers have said it's non fiction and that the author has assured them it's a truthful account.

I’ve booked tickets to see the film next week!
We booked before this all broke after we have walked a few miles on the south west coast path. I knew the film would show some of the places we visited and was interested by that - do we know if they actually did the whole walk?

No, we don't.
That's one of the questions.

Well, sure. I’m just addressing your point made in caps (NOT memoir) as not necessarily being the case.

This might have been just about excusable for the first book, but she then went and compounded the issue by writing further books spinning the same yarn

TBH I doubt anything will happen to them other than perhaps having to sort out the land and house in France.

They will still be laughing all the way to the bank.
Their reputations are in tatters but do they care? Most likely not.

Yes, if it’s in production (which it will be if it’s out in Oct), it’s unlikely, I imagine, to be pulled, as it’s not the book the allegations of fakery are about. possible they might, but also possible people might buy it because of the publicity…?

Looking at the Wiki entry about recent fake memoirs, the ones pulled in advance of publication (all in the US) were books where the author’s fakery was uncovered because of pre-publication publicity bringing the deception to light.

Interestingly, one of the Wiki entries (a memoir by the woman who purportedly wrote a famous and famously terrible Harry Potter fanfic about a vampire in love with Draco Malfoy) links to a Vox article which says she photoshopped documents her publisher required to prove her identity during ‘vetting’. Presumably that was because her whole story was that she was the mystery writer behind ‘My Immortal’. If she’s not the real writer, there’s no story.

What does the nephew say? I’m not on LI.

I don't think the publishers will be liable here.

They have been misled by the author.

The reality is that with life writing/memoir, it's a subjective account of someone's version of their reality and so 'fact-checking' and 'due-diligence' don't really apply. You can't as a publisher ask for someone's medical records, for example. You have to take people's word for it, and so that does make this genre quite open to being taken advantage of by shysters looking to tell a hard luck story.

I'm fine with some artistic licence and embellishment - shaping anyone's life into a 'narrative' for public consumption is going to take some of that, after all - but when the central feature of a memoir is about overcoming the odds of a terminal illness when that terminal illness doesn't exist - then you're on very dodgy ground.

Penguin Random House will probably stop any further reprints of the existing books, and they will have to add a disclaimer to any future editions should there be any.

I would imagine they will either cancel or indefinitely delay the upcoming book altogether as sales will not be good - the public will have lost confidence in the author, and if the content of the book centres around Moth's illness - which I believe it does - and this is under question, they won't want to risk the potential blowback if it does come out that he never had the diagnosis at all.

This is going to be a big financial hit for Penguin, but they are insured against this kind of thing. Raynor Winn won't be, so I hope she's saved the money she's made, as she won't be making much more for the foreseeable.

I feel sorry for the people involved in making the film - a deal is apparently pending for the film to be shown in the US and wider European markets, but with all this furore, I can't see this going ahead now and they will be limited to their takings made in the UK. It'll be difficult for them to make a profit now.

That they are his aunt and uncle, that they are pathological liars, have left a trail of destruction and that there is more to come...

This is discussed in today's episode of The Rest is Entertainment podcast. The first third, some interesting stuff around 15 minutes in about the publishing process and who will have contractual responsibility for the narrative being the truth.

eta: Just seen it's already been linked upthread by @worrisomeasset !

Well even in the first book, the Salt Path, they don't complete the walk, they manage to find housing for the winter and resume it the following year. The film reflects this.
Incidentally, although the film was good, I didn't feel it did the book justice...which is a strange thing to say now.

I'm inclined to believe that Moth is ill, that he's never had a clearer diagnosis than of CBD but that this dx isn't right, and that following the loss of their home they did walk the SWCP and find it meaningful.

As to the rest...I suppose we'll find out

That was a really interesting discussion.

Marina Hyde bought the book to see what all this was about, and Richard Osman says sales will have gone up in all likelihood as people who've never heard of the book will now be buying it. And of course the Walkers will still be profiting.

They mentioned that it'll be interesting to see who ends up being "on the sofa" as each side will want to get their stories out.

The statement released by Walker is all a bit of waffle.

Osman also said that The Salt Path will have paid for a lot of other books that have come out in recent years.

And interestingly, he says in the contract the Walkers will have signed there will ahve been a bit to say everything is true, so the onus will be completely on them.

They questioned why the publishers didn't check the story about how the Walkers lost their house because they should have made sure no one was going to pop up and dispute it.

As to why the Walkers thought they'd get away with it Osman and Hyde suggest it's because they thought no one would realise, and that they didn't understand how different the film world is to the book world, and how much more exposure that would bring.

😅 I know exactly what you mean.
I avoided reading this book as it sounded too sentimental.

What did he say

Books that you may already be familiar with regarding neuroscience that are extremely uplifting , fascinating and verifiably factual are Norman Doidge’s ‘ The brain that changes itself ‘ and ‘the brain’s way of healing’ x