Thread 4: 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 ...

Second article in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found

Third article in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

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

Thread 3 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5369425-thread-3-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

They were clearly going to publish it just after "Super Thursday" this year. The really big titles go out on Super Thursday, then the next few weeks get the more mid-list titles to give them a chance. It's all for the Christmas market.

They found a couple of people who care, and a couple who don't - without any actual evidence they have read the book or would even read the book. And they found one "expert" to suggest that there is no such thing as truth.

For good or for ill, I think you will find that the vast majority of people are really quite judgemental about things like lying and theft.

Another point is that the book has been translated into 25 different languages and the movie released worldwide. What may feel like a storm in a very British teacup might not resonate the same way in other markets. In fact, the Channel 4 News segment I shared featured North American voices who almost seemed to expect a certain amount of fiction blended with the facts.

The Observer article does not say that James and Cooper are different people. It doesn't really say anything about the alleged investment.

One possible way of squaring the two accounts is that the Walkers invested in James' property business. If they bought shares, they would have hoped for a return on their investment. However, assuming this is an investment in a limited company, not a loan, they would only get their original investment back if they were able to sell the shares back to the company or to someone else. Then, when Sally and Tim went on the run, they go to James and ask him to buy their shares back. He tells them that the business has failed (or is failing) and the shares are now worthless, so neither he nor the business will buy them back. However, he will lend them £100k secured on their house at 18% interest to help Sally avoid prison.

To me, that makes sense. Cooper is James. There is no loan to Cooper, but there is an investment which is lost when the business fails to perform. The loan to them is not related to their investment, it is due to Sally's criminality. It allows Sally to spin a story which has enough truth in it to mean she can probably justify it to herself as essentially true, but which hides her embezzlement.

Also, the kind of people who buy and read books like The Salt Path (myself included) are exactly the kind of people who are judgemental about lying and theft.

Not "worldwide". About four countries.

The movie is looking for distributors in this US.

I'd like to add that he is listed as the academic journal's book editor so it's just one of many reviews he's done. I don't think the review itself is of any concern for reasons you make above. But there still could be a real connection between him and RayMoth, which for now seems a bit odd.

A few more than 4 but yes limited at the moment I guess it will depend on how well it does in the initial markets.

Those comments are interesting.

It makes it all the more shocking to realise that when she was embezzling money from Martin Hemmings he was already ill with cancer.

One can only presume that she strove to take advantage of his illness and thought that his attention would be elsewhere. It makes her even more evil regarding the embezzlement.

Some 0.025% of the world population has purchased the book since publication in 2018. Which kind of suggests that it hasn't "resonated" in many markets at all!

If that is true (and to be fair, we don't know about that), but IF it is true, then she's even more of a CF to comment on people being intrusive about a so-called terminal diagnosis for her husband.

Can someone with knowledge of investment please help me understand what RW means in her statement? She writes that when Moth's 1990 investment with Cooper's business was about to mature, they were told it had failed due to low occupancy. I assume this is to do with property and rental income.

She says Cooper lied about this and then offered to pay them back when confronted in 2008. Is this really how companies operate - ie shareholders can be hoodwinked into thinking there is no return of investment when there is?

Given recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health condition which has caused considerable distress to Raynor Winn and her family

That's a bit cheeky - three books worth of the author telling us all about her husband's health condition, then people start asking if he really had it as described, and suddenly it's intrusive. I don't speculate about the health of random people I don't know, but you can't tell everyone about it and then baulk if they discuss or question it.

Were they shareholders? If so I imagine they bought shares in a company that had a project in it

it may well be that he bought a building to convert into flats (as an eg) and intended to sell it on for a profit but didn’t due to economic crisis/overspend etc

no one can guarantee a company will succeed so you should never buy shares assuming you will make money without a lot of due diligence and there is always a risk you will lose your initial investment.

if the company was in a loss position there is no way he could have made the loan out of the company - secured or not

her whole story just doesn’t add up

Really? Which bit of that is barking up the wrong tree? Do you really think the Walkers or PRH paid this doctor a large sum of money to promote a book that was already a best seller in a niche publication?

Yes but 2 million sales is the point here which puts in in the top league of worldwide book sales. It only needs to resonate with those that buy it. Spare did 6 million and he had an unique USP driving that. I have a mate who wrote a pretty good book spent 5 years on it got to "Dragon's Den" with Curtis Brown in front of agents - got good feeback but no bites. I was his +1 at the weekend conference and got a very interesting insight into the world of trying to get published. Historical triliogies seem to be the thing I seem to remember - I bet everyone there would have killed their granny to get the sort of exposure they have got.

What about distress to his family? Although, assuming James Walker is his nephew and not RW's as the name would suggest, the distress was caused a long time ago

Yes she made his health central to the book so it’s already out there

it’s like celebrities who court the paps and then complain about them!

Are you suggesting that other nationalities are comfortable with lies, theft and manipulation? Astonishing

Also if you feel that £64k is a storm in a teacup you must have a lot of spare cash lying around. Do you want to invest in my noexisting company?

2 million is small fry in a publishing world market, and how many will it resonate with when they discover it was a lie? Just because it is a "best seller" doesn't mean it resonates with the majority of people, and just because it resonated with a small number of people doesn't mean it will continue to do so when they find they have been lied to. And find out they will - the internet makes sure of that.

But you seem very keen to prove that lying is inconsequential, so I will leave you to that world. In the one I live in, people tend to not like it very much. Especially when they have been scammed into believing an untruth.

They will have to follow this story in detail and be invested and I have no idea if this story is landing if at all in non-British markets and then care about it. I have no dog in this race, haven't read the books or seen the film and pretty much have no desire to do either but I might weaken if I see a copy in a charity shop for a quid say. Morals and ethics aside I'm more interested in the developing circus around the story which makes a welcome aside from much bigger ailments troubling the world to which I pay too much attention.

Ray/Sally worked for Martin Hemmings in " the years before the economic crash of 2008" (from her statement) and the Hemmings realised money was missing in 2008.

As a matter of interest I did a conversion with the CPI inflation calculator and £64,000 in 2008 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £109,126.73 today

Poor man.

I think that’s true. Much of the UK readership’s sense that they really know Raynor and Moth is in part due to their familiarity with the terrain walked, or Cornwall or Wales in general, but also, primarily, to the fact that R appeared on tv and radio so much, and when the film was made with two high-profile actors, who also did a lot of publicity with R and M — this means that the book, its sequels and film adaptation will sit very differently in other territories. Overseas readers are going to have a less familial and personal engagement with the book, and feel less personally betrayed by the massaging of truth.

It really isn’t small fry! Most debuts sink without trace.