Thread 18: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

Hello all. I've simplified the opening post as I don't think we need to keep reposting all the links, timelines and so on at this stage of proceedings.

The Observer's original exposé: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...
First thread: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet
Links to threads 2-16, the other 20 Observer articles and videos to date, Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement, our timeline and sources can all be accessed in the OP and first few posts of Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5403285-thread-17-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

New posters joining us in the genuine spirit of our civil discourse are welcome. It would be helpful to get the background from at least some of the Observer exposé items before posting.
To all - Please be extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Remember, even Hollywood rabbits attract the odd flea. Please do not engage with drive-by scolders who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail. Avoid @'ing and quoting them as - from experience - this will only encourage them back to the threads. We have done amazingly well together for 17 very interesting, very serious and very silly threads so far. I can't be here as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion walking along in our usual reasonable and respectful fashion is very welcome.

Now three months in, if these threads could wear slogan t-shirts they would be Mark Twain's often misquoted 'The report of my death was an exaggeration'. Applications in writing from correspondents seeking supply parcels of fudge and cider will be tolerated.

Here we are again
Disappointed as can be
All good pals and jolly good company
Strolling round the path
Happy on a spree
All good pals and jolly good company

Never mind the weather, never mind the rain
Now that we're together, whoops we go again!
Whoops, we go again
La-di-da-di-da, la-di-da-di-dee
All good pals and jolly good company

Keep to the path. No saltiness. May the fudge and cider be with you.

In the books, Moth is written as believing himself to be terminally ill too and in real life, Tim told Bill that he was advised by doctors that he shouldn’t plan beyond Christmas. They were both peddling the same message. They’ve had three months to come out and put this right by telling the truth that he is not terminally ill after all, but they’ve chosen not to. Their silence really tells everything that is needed to know. If they were honest people they would try and put this right. But of course they are not and the evidence keeps circling back to the theft and whatever else happened before and after.
I’m glad a sensible decision had been made to cut out the “inevitable decline” garbage marketing the next book.

It would be a pretty depressing prospect if despite all CH's revelations about TSP and presumably more revelations to come in the December docudrama on Sky, PRH just go ahead and publish OWH with a few minor tweaks to downplay the severity of Moth's CBD.

RW decides to maintain a stony silence and not address any new disclosures, OWH is published in October 2026 and immediately rockets to the top of the ST Bestseller list, buoyed by demand from RW's faithful fans eager to know how Moth is doing. "Raynor Winn is back with a bang" writes one exultant reviewer.

PR for OWH and appearances at Lit Fests are carefully curated by her agent to ensure that there are no tricky questions from the audience and no reference is made to the controversy surrounding TSP. And life gradually begins to return to normal for the dodgy duo as the royalties pour in and PRH and GMC rub their hands and chuckle gleefully, as they contemplate the 5th,6th and 7th books from the literary phenomenon that is Raynor Winn!

The bit in the blurb for OWH about Moth's inevitable decline is still shown on the Penguin website

On Winter Hill

I suppose they think they (Penguin) can palm that off with a response such as “Well we’re all declining inevitably aren’t we?” which is a line of defence that everybody knows is not the author’s intent.
There’s been so many fantastic posts in the last couple of days that I am having trouble keeping up. I can’t remember who posted about the “slice of pie” style benefits and the SWCP association making her an ambassador despite the revelations in the book about how they camped, defecated etc. I simply had not thought of this issue but why oh why did they oversee that?? Who was responsible for making her an ambassador?
Every time I read the full rebuttal, I cringe and see new aspects of it which have been proved wrong by posters on this thread.

This was along the lines of what I think was my first ever comment on these threads! (Waves to the other old-timers; although perhaps even the mention of 'waves' is enough to make us recoil now).

TW is now well into his sixties. Of course he's in decline! And I always suspected (as in my first post) that SW was going to come out with the 'well, we're all dying aren't we? Some of us are just facing our mortality better than you lot, who are assuming you are going to live forever...' as her defence.

I think all of that is certainly within the bounds of possibility, though I’d imagine that a rejigged OWH would need more than ‘minor tweaks’, more of an introductory chapter meditating self-righteously on everyone taking against her and how difficult it’s all been, combined with some anecdote about TW losing control of his bowels and how we can all imagine her sense of betrayal that anyone thinks he’s faking etc etc.

I’m not sure how a publicist would handle public readings/literary festivals — an interviewer could certainly be told the subject is off-limits (though they might then decline to participate), but one can imagine audience members asking in the Q and A, even if SW then declines to reply, which makes her look bad. Then again, the people who attend readings and literary festivals tend to be (a) a quite specific cohort and (b) very much fans of the author, who will be less inclined to be unduly critical, and whom I can easily imagine making their displeasure at a fellow audience-member asking awkward questions felt.

(A fairly high-profile novelist friend says that from her readings, you would imagine that her readership consists solely of enormously nice white women in their late fifties and sixties, though emails and online reviews and ratings suggest it’s way more varied than that, but that they’re overwhelmingly the cohort that goes to her events.)

I think SW would have to do one high-profile interview, print or tv, as a kind of self-justifying ‘mea (not very much) culpa’. That in fact that ‘underdog misjudged by the world’ thing would actually suit her. She’s positioned them very carefully as underdogs and outsiders in every one of her books, even when, as in LL, they’re an obviously privileged couple with the money and leisure to fund a four-month-long holiday that involves car collection, hotel stays, buying expensive new kit en route etc.

I do think that reviewers in the broadsheets would mention the controversy in reviews.

I do think OWH might well sell well, to established superfans and those who are vaguely aware of ‘having read something about the first book’, but not knowing more, or seeing why it might stop them buying it anyway.

I think OWH might slide out without much of a fanfare. If the reception is good enough (and uncritical enough), they can ramp up the publicity work after it's already out. I can't see SW accepting many invitations to talk about it, because she'd always run the risk of even approved questions deviating into 'yes, but what about...' and she's a bit 'rabbit in the headlights' when she hasn't got a carefully prepared answer.

And I know what your friend means - at any of my author 'dos' you'd think that my entire readership is able bodied women of around the 35 age group, but I know that a lot of my readers have disabilities (I write a fair bit about characters with disabilities or MH problems), and these are the people who find it hardest to get to author events!

@KettleSmocks I do think that reviewers in the broadsheets would mention the controversy in reviews.

Unfortunately, there are countless examples of quotes from the broadsheets used to market the Raynor Winn brand. The reviewers do not appear to be any more discerning than 'popular' publications.

I know that these gushing affirmations were before the controversy but it does lead me onto my current theme: slice of the pie-ism. This is post 3 of "Everyone deserves a slice of the pie. Don't they?"

The more honest of these book reviews do inform the reader that if we follow the link to buy the book - they will get a slice of the pie. So even if they write a positive review but with some qualms I may not be inspired to buy it.

Hey, but what if I am wowed by their review. Triumph over adversity, life-affirming, close to nature - I want some of that!. Let's click on the link and buy The Salt Path - that newspaper will profit.

The rebuttal ends by thanking SW's editor and her publicist. Has her publicist said anything post-"controversy", including about the film?

As far as I am aware all publicity seemed to come to a dead stop as soon as this whole affair blew up. I've not even seen the film being pushed in the usual places I would expect to see it. Almost as though it just died.

I don’t think they were more discerning in their responses to TSP, no, but I don’t think that, say, a Guardian, TLS or LRB review of OWH when/if it appears, would fail to consider it in terms of the Observer story, its fallout and general thoughts on the status of memoir.

I hope you are right and I do think it has made a significant impact on the press. They do all need to make money, though.

I don’t remember her thanking them — or that she mentions her editor? I think she just ended with the contact details for her agent, Jennifer Christie and a PR person at PRH. Meaning, if you want to get in touch with me, here are the ways.

I wouldn’t expect any statements from either unless there was something to promote, or unless PRH were issuing its own statement.

Sorry, you're right - SW identified them rather than thanked them.

What I had in mind is whether a publicist would usually make comments about the book they are publicising, particularly when a film of the book gets released, and if so whether that happened for TSP.

I’m not convinced that a link from a book review is going to make an enormous difference to that paper’s income, though. Yes, there is a link at the end of Guardian book reviews to the Guardian Bookshop (which is an independent business, but a proportion of each book’s sales go back to the Guardian), but I’ve been reading the Guardian reviews my entire adult life, without ever buying a book from them. (As it’s a phone and online shop only, I imagine it’s aimed at readers who either don’t use the internet at all, hence the phone line , or who do, but don’t want to use Amazon.)

Similarly, I’m an LRB subscriber, but never buy a book from them.

I remember you pointing out at the start @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, that most of us post sixty are noticeably in decline. If the next book is published and within it Salray tries to shift the blame, a good way for her to do that is blame Jennifer Christie but stay with Penguin. Lots of the literary posters have theorised in the past that Salray was directed to write about things in a certain way, she could take that as far as she could.

When you read Jennifer Christie's blurb she lists the kind of topics she is looking for, it does seem a bit tacky, Salray could plead desperation for agreeing to alter facts, that once set in motion she was powerless to stop it. So far Salray has been excepted and loved by her fans, Penguin might be happy to go along with something that keeps the profits rolling. As @BeguiledBrandy says, to a greater or lesser degree Raymoth are a profitable commodity to many.

Based on the same friend’s publicist at her publisher, a literary imprint at one of the big ones (she thinks this person is excellent) — the job involves managing author events, tours, media opportunities, reviews, prize entries, sometimes travelling with the author on tour.

At a lower/assistant level it might involve making travel bookings for a tour, admin support, sending out book mailings to reviewers, logging press coverage, review clippings etc. At a higher level it will involve being responsible for an entire high-profile publicity campaign, trying to figure out an angle for an author who may not know what to say about themselves, managing relationships with publications, festivals etc. (My novelist friend has definitely been asked in advance of ‘in conversation with’ type events if there are questions or topics to steer clear of.)

I would imagine the appropriate publicity person at PRH would certainly have been active in promoting links back to the book when the film was released, doing stuff like making sure a paperback TSP with a film still cover was released at the right time (I noticed that my Kindle copy spontaneously switched to a film still cover) and coordinating SW’s appearances in film publicity/at the premiere etc. I imagine that the CH story meant that finding a US distributor became impossible, so the campaign halted when it would usually have had a big new push there, with SW and the actors teaming up for media there. Don’t know what’s happened in other overseas territories.

But ironically, on the basis of any publicity being good publicity, the CH story may have bumped sales.

Remember that the PRH person works for the publisher, not SW.

Her agent (who gets a 10- 20% commission of SW’s earnings from royalties, advances, film rights and any other sales she negotiates) will deal with any conflicts with the publisher. That may be one of the things that’s going on, and/or acting as an advisor to SW about happens next, if anything, and possibly doing some developmental editing on a rewrite of OWH, if that’s what’s happening. Agents can absolutely be involved in promotional efforts, too, but at the moment there’s nothing to promote.

I can't remember who pointed out long ago, maybe it was @SimoArmo, I'm sorry if I am wrongly attributing, that if the first raffle book was found, the book Salray most likely wrote, it could be used somehow to draw her out, it could certainly be compared for writing style, I was thinking how funny it would be if it could be found and plagiarised, Salray could do nothing about it. If only one of you clever authors could write a spoof, a bit of public satire about the whole thing, I think Raymoth would hate that.

They have been trying to be taken seriously as new age eco warriors, spokespersons for health, nature and the environment, I think the way to really stop them from doing any further harm, is to ridicule them. The problem is they seem to have a strong fan base in the over 50's, I couldn't find any fan fiction involving them, so I'm not sure that the people who could lampoon them are aware. They need to be disarmed, like a dangerous weapon :)

Reminds me of that series Danger UXB with Anthony Andrews!

I want those fellas around when I have an unexploded bomb to deal with @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas:) I'm off for a night of caravanning with no internet, I don't think I will be back before you all depart again. I might have to hang on to the back of the charabanc or hitch a lift to catch up with you all. I have a small quantity of fudge left over from the trick or treaters, no cider but gin, I will have to fortify myself with that.

Maybe you could draw inspiration from the dynamic duo, and cadge a lift from the army or a theatre group.

That's a very good idea @Peladon, I will put on my fluorescent socks so I can be seen and hopefully some passing squaddies or thespians will pick me up :)

Nothing to do with TSP, but made me think of it.

just read on BBC News website that Sarah Fetguson has written a book which had a publication dare of 9 October but now moved to a new date which Waterstone doesn't know. The book is called "Flora and Fern: Kindness Along The Way." The publisher has not responded to requests for comment. "Publishers don't tend to drop authors, they just quietly don't renew contracts", said the editor of a book trade news website.

I think that being dropped might be inevitable for SW now, even if PRH bring out OWH (all these acronyms are killing me..). Publishers will drop authors if sales don't come up to scratch or if the author becomes publishing poison for some reason or another and I think SWs misdeeds will be more than enough to make PRH quietly just never publish anything else from her. Although I'd be hard pressed to know what else she might write - she can't keep the 'long distance walking/husband dying/oooh, nature!' up forever, she just doesn't have the writing ability. She'd need to transition to possibly just writing about nature, but again, I don't think she has the writing chops to help readers to see nature in a new light. She's just too pedestrian (and no, that's not a pun... unless it's funny, in which case I DEFINITELY intended it).

I wonder if the film has been shown in the USA yet. That was the plan but then the Observer article came out and there hasn't been any news, or else I missed it.