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It doesn't tell us anything new, but is in parts quite funny and I agree with the journalist's contention that part of TSP's appeal to Middle England is down to how much of a moanfest it is, under the guise of it being 'feelgood' and 'uplifting', and that some people don't care whether or not it's true.
The journey begins with a climb out of Minehead. It is “excruciatingly steep”, says Ms Winn, leaving her with a “huge blister two inches across”, which soon halts progress. There are many grassy spots but, inexplicably, the duo decide to pitch their tent on heather (like “lying in the fork drawer”). Ms Winn’s thin sleeping bag is “bone-aching cold”. Moth’s pills mean he doesn’t want to have sex. He snores.
The adjective most often applied to “The Salt Path” is “uplifting”. Yet what strikes the reader most is constant grumbling, which surely accounts for part of the book’s success. In “The Wild Places”, Robert Macfarlane, perhaps Britain’s finest naturalist writer, happily nestles down in his bivouac with some cheese and rye bread for dinner; a few sonnets are enough to keep him warm. The book sold around 100,000 copies. Ms Winn’s moan-fest sold 2m and was translated into 25 languages. Its message: you too could be redeemed by nature, even if you find it annoying.
Ms Winn finds everything annoying. Slights, perceived or imagined, seem to lurk around every corner. After making it down to Bossington—a pretty descent that Ms Winn spends mulling whether she dislikes uphills or downhills more—the couple stop for a cream tea they can’t afford. Here they admit to a family that they are homeless, whereupon “the man reached out and pulled his child towards him and the wife winced and looked away.” Ms Winn finds such pathos in this scene that she repeats it twice later, almost word for word. Elsewhere, complete strangers call the couple “disgusting”.
The journalist walks (or claims to walk 
) the first 30 km of the SWCP, gauges local people's response to both the book and the allegations, and points out that a memoir is subject to far less fact-checking than a reputable newspaper's journalism:
A few miles on, in Porlock, locals have mixed views. “It’s all a load of old nonsense isn’t it,” says Lesley Thompson, buying her morning paper in SPAR. Her main gripe is that a scene in the film featuring a local beach has led to streams of confused tourists looking for a path that does not exist. Paul McGee, the owner of The Lorna Doone Hotel, is more chipper, crediting Ms Winn with a slight uptick in business. Next year he expects a surge, when Ms Anderson’s fans stream over from America.
One question raised by the scandal is whether publishers should be more sceptical. Climbing the hill out of Porlock, the Winns encounter a blind man practising yoga on the path, who catches them up at a picturesque church. “We’re just walking the path,” they tell him. “You are, and you’ll travel many miles,” the blind man replies. “You’ll see many things, amazing things, and suffer many setbacks,” the blind man continues, before laying his hand on Moth’s. “But you will overcome them, you’ll survive, and it will make you strong.”
Perhaps one far-fetched scene could be overlooked (“I’ve been in that church many times and I’ve never been spoken to by any blind man,” says Tony Richards, the church warden). But most of the reported speech in the book sounds like a Hollywood script rather than real life. Industry figures have noted that many publishers have no fact-checkers. A book billed as a “true story” is subject to far less scrutiny than this article.
The article references James Frey and his excuse, in subsequent editions of A Million Little Pieces (later marketed as a novel) that he was writing' about the person I had created in my mind':
Ms Winn insists her book is true and says she “can’t allow any more doubt to be cast on the validity of those memories”. But it will be, in part because the scandal itself is such a good story. “The Salt Path” is a morality play in which the protagonists—homeless, dying, poor—endure a callous world, indifferent to their suffering. Not only does that tale now appear fabricated, it has caused suffering of its own, including to CBS patients who took false hope from Moth’s recovery.
What, then, is the moral of this story? It could be, as Ms Winn would put it, the power of keeping going. The journey has brought her riches, though it seems unlikely she will be counting her good fortune. Perhaps it is that the truth will always catch up with you. Yet Ms Winn’s book will remain in print; while some readers are angry, others seem not to mind. “I’ve heard all that stuff and I don’t care,” says a woman inspired to walk the trail, a few miles before Lymouth. “It’s about the theory.”