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 ...

Thread One ^www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5368194-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?^

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 had a little search of the Bookseller and although it refers to TSP mostly as non-fiction, the announcement of the film refers to it as a memoir.

Which is interesting and also makes you right! So apologies.

I am a bit cross, not at you, but at the prospect that Winn allegedly lied about Moth's condition.

When I read the book, I didn't believe the way they had lost the house. I assumed there was more to it that she didn't want to reveal. She still lost it, no matter how it happened.

I also thought whilst reading it that Moth didn't have the terminal illness, that she was kind of catastrophising because the doctor had said he probably had it. She says in the book that there is no way to actually diagnose it.

For me, the book was about the walk and the people she met- I also assumed a lot of those stories were embellished. I thought the book was rubbish, but I coukd see why it was published. Lots of 'spiritual awakening' type things were being published then.

When she wrote it she had no idea if it would be even published, let alone be a best seller or made into a film.

Even in the Observer article it sounds like the French house is uninhabitable. They were so skint they probably couldn't afford the trip to Bordeaux and had they gone to France I expect they wouldn't have got their benefits immediately.

She comes across in the book as very self centred and ratger unpleasant. I thought that was either very brave of her or very stupid.

I wonder if the quiet, less sensationalist, personal stories will thrive instead of being tarred. Really isn’t that a typical ‘life narrative? A daily routine of get up and face the world.

At our bookclub I mentioned exactly this and got shouted down because 'clearly' parents wanted to protect their children and how I simply could not comprehend the drive for parents to do this.

One of our members was quite emotional about it so i just let it lie.

Rename it a Pinch of Salt Path - Fiction job done !

I was sceptical in a book club years ago and it was clear that I was alone and the others decided that I wasn’t a nice person because of my views re the book. I feel vindicated but still confused as to why some people see through it and those who “believe”, protect their belief so fiercely in the face of others who doubt. I left the book club and in a subsequent one I have kept quiet!

The house in France is uninhabitable now, and may have been when they bought it, but I imagine the plan was to do it up, and hence why they stayed there in caravans. Why buy it otherwise?

When they disappeared from Wales the French authorities were pursuing them, and continued to pursue them, for non payment of taxes and other fees. If they'd gone to France, they would have have had their creditors there pursuing them.

Whether it's memoir or non-fiction is irrelevant.

Every story needs editing, so some details will be left out, and events can be truncated or chronologies squished, sometimes a few characters are merged into one.

But the important thing is that the spirit of the story and the writer is true. There has to be a trust between the reader and the writer, and a connection formed on that basis.

So there is a world of difference between a woman who has lost her home through her own generosity and naivity, with a terminally ill husband, and a woman who had stolen from people who trusted her and essentially went on the run to escape debts, lying about or exaggerating her husbands condition for sympathy.

That is absolutely not the same as finding out they got the bus for a bit of it.

That is absolutely not the same as finding out they got the bus for a bit of it.

👍👍👍

Except the book tells us the children were well aware of their parents' walk, the loss of the house and their dad's illness, and both were asked for train money. But clearly a narrative choice to omit any mention, which is OK.

For me, I credit my legal training mainly. Not just for this book but also the first time I was approached by an MLM Hun my I could see right through the stuff she was saying

Similarly I think people with a science background are generally good at analysing the nonsense.

Or maybe it's also whether or not you have been exposed to people who will lie to your face. My ex was like this, I could never work out whether even he believed his own lives he was so convincing at telling them.

Either way, being healthily sceptical doesn't make us "bad people".

The bad people are the liars and manipulators

I still want to know if it is true that random, kindly strangers offered them the use of a flat and a farm or if that is another obfuscation to hide their true financial status.

Agreed.

But.... I always suspectes that the story of how they got the bus for a little bit of it (which was in the book) was a way of covering themselves if the story later came out that in fact they only walked small sections of it ...

I wonder if Sally Walker has got a woe is me it wasn’t our fault interview lined up with the DM.

Or maybe she and Penguin are just staying quiet in the hope it'll blow over somehow?

Autofiction smautofiction. We’re all aware that all books and films based on true stories need to be adapted and shaped into a compelling narrative.

However fabricating you have a terminal illness and blaming an old mate for the £64,000 you stole from a small business is a different thing. Radio 4 etc concentrating on “how true do memoirs need to be” seems like a red herring to me

Echoes of Ffyona Campbell and the scandal about her books.

I bet she’s already started writing her next book all about this.

Oh, absolutely. Pair of con artists, and if it’s true about Moth’s condition or lack thereof, utterly amoral as well. And the thing about offering their house up as a prize! That was about to be repossessed! Unfuckingbelieveable. Proper grifters.

I just listened to Marina Hyde and Richard Osman talking about this on The Rest is Entertainment (PRH is also RO’s publisher), and he reiterated that the contract that Sally Walker would have signed (or both of them, I suppose, if they’re in fact co-authors under the name Raynor Winn) would have put all legal responsibility for untruths in the memoir on them, not PRH. So the publisher will be dealing with reputational damage, sure, but bear no legal responsibility for untruths in the book. That’s on the Walkers.

RO said he could absolutely see why the publisher had bought it (I agree) and mentioned £30 k as a likely ballpark advance sum, Marina said she thought they wouldn’t have needed to pay that much, But Richard said he thought there could have been a bidding war for much more otherwise.

They both thought that the film production company would have been likely to do far more fact checking, as the money invested is far more. But clearly the Walkers passed whatever due diligence was done.

Neither had read it, though Marina has just bought it ;Richard pointed out that some of the cover price will still go to the Walkers) and Marina said she absolutely understood why readers who’d identified with the book felt so lied to.

She also specifically said Mumsnetters and Tattle Life people were particularly incensed.😀

ETA They also suggested that the original MS is likely to have skated much more lightly over the reason why they were homeless, but that an editor is likely to have said the reader needed more detail.

I get autofiction although I don’t understand why it’s not just fiction. Don’t they tell people to write what they know?

but what she wrote was firmly marketed as non fiction and that was the mistake. I assume it’s because she’s not a good enough writer for it to have sold as fiction

the publisher on front row said they makes choices about what section to put it in based on where it will sell better. She gave the example of a novelist who wrote a memoir and they put it in fiction because that’s where her fans shop. Bit cynical

25p pasty? I feel done. I've just come back from Devon and paid over £10 for two at a well known pasty shop. ( And very delicious they were too and certainly fueled us walking back to our campsite along a section of the SW coastal path).
It's quite heavily marketed as The Salt Path in some places and NT shops certainly have quite a bit of SP merchandise. I wonder what they will do with it now? . Poor Angela Harding , her illustrations are beautiful but though probably could be always associated with this pair of charlatans.
Having not read the book - and they ain't getting any of my money now - what exactly happened in with the cafe owner and the scones? Sound like at least complete lack of understanding that these small enterprises need to sell their products ato live . Pretty sure that those ' rich tourists ' who were tucking into them had the money to because they hadn't committed any dreadful acts like embezzlement ..

Campbell later redid the parts she missed, quietly and without fuss because she felt so bad about what she'd done.

The reasons for her lying were around her pregnancy as far as I remember.

She wasn't on the run after embezzling anyone, or stealing from many others, and leaving 'a trail of destruction'.

Interesting, isn’t it? I think some of this is because of the bizarre political situation we live in where, in order to stay in the “good people” camp, one is expected to espouse ridiculous beliefs. If you don’t, you are labelled as a “bad person”, racist, fascist etc etc. For example, up to a few weeks ago good person status required us to believe that some women have penises.

People find this situation very stressful. They can’t use their own instincts and rational thought to decide what is true and if they accidentally espouse an “unacceptable” view they risk becoming a “bad person”. Hence a) not seeing what is staring them in the face and 2) attacking anyone who tries to point out obvious truths.