Hi MumsNetters. I've been following these threads (and MN in general) for ages but this is my first post. I've also been following the unfolding saga on a well-known social media platform (the one that posts pieces from newspapers that people then comment on - oh stuff it, Facebook), and am fascinated by the polarisation of commenters: broadly speaking, it's either a) 'she's an embezzler and they're both liars and grifters, her books were predicated on untruths and I feel duped/ disappointed/ betrayed', or b) 'it was only a book, what does it matter, who cares, books are never 100% accurate, good luck to them.'
So far as I've seen, Camp A people don't necessarily believe everything that the newspapers have reported, but might also have sought out other sources of information. They probably read at least TSP but there's a high chance that they sensed something was 'off' about it and might not have finished. If they DID finish it, read the others, watched the film, they are among the ones who feel the strongest sense of betrayal - superseded only by those who have (or loved ones have/ had) the same disease as Tim Walker and realise that they were given false hope. Camp A people are the ones who care most about the embezzling, the other stealing, and all the other assorted lies.
Camp B people, on the other hand, disregard the newspaper reports as nonsense or exaggerated or 'unproven' or downright lies. The Observer journalist is spiteful, or jealous, and the others are bandwagon-jumping - ditto Camp A people who post on the same thread (even, shamefully, relatives/ friends of Martin Hemmings who have posted saying 'He was my xxxx and he never recovered', who have been quizzed and told 'can't you just let it go?'). In Camp B people's minds, they were lovely, heartwarming books, and isn't it great if they've made people go outside in the fresh air? Some of them don't appear to know what non-fiction or memoir means. They call the Walkers Ray and Moth, as if they're personal friends, and the tone of their posts seems to be either sentimental and reductive ('but they lost everything and then made something of themselves!'), passive-aggressive ('how nice that you've never made mistakes in your life') or hectoring. The cognitive dissonance is strong.
I do understand how hard it is to accept that you've been duped - I was married to a (diagnosed) narcissist who was also a pathological liar; he turned out to be a convicted paedophile (albeit one with a vivid imagination) and even now,10 years later, I have to heed my therapist's words that it wasn't me being gullible, it was him being - well, provide your own word ... ! But I honestly don't understand how people (Camp B) are so convinced that Camp A people are wrong, and find it so impossible to say 'well b*gger me, they were a right pair, weren't they'...
Any thoughts?
Thanks for reading my Ted Talk!