Thread 19: 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'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?

Thread 18: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5422393-thread-18-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. Over four months we have done amazingly well together for 18 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.

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

"I'll fight anyone who says I'll make it to Christmas 2021!"

Noone should feel bad about taking the books at face value. If it had actually been true inadequacies in the writing could be forgiven, especially in TSP as a 'first' book. The general glumwashing, well, they weren't in good circumstances for 'no fault of their own' and it improves nobody's world view. I've not read the subsequent books (Hell, I haven't read much of the first one yet but they doubled my beta blockers today so who knows) but people being invested in their success and Timoth's health pre scandal is unsurprising. She has poisoned her own chalice though and I doubt anyone of discernment will want to drink from it further.

I'm also increasingly convinced that she owes an enormous amount to Our Simon's Walking Away, far over and above the mistaken identity thing. I think she piggybacked on his work, retrofitted to his walk (and is basically a fibbing fibber who fibs, of course) She must have thought she'd won the Lottery when he was made PL, for the extra kudos by thin association.

Does SalRay have any capacity to learn, grow, apologise, change?
Probably not. If you find that unbelievable, can I refer you to the case of Hannah Ingram-Moore?

@Uricon2 I'm also increasingly convinced that she owes an enormous amount to Our Simon's Walking Away, far over and above the mistaken identity thing.

How interesting - I must read this some time - but she does owe to 500MW too. She gets quite a lot out of operating in plain sight, I think. She copies the books she references. She is visibly irritated when asked about Moth's name.

This Rear-Admiral scandal. I just thought ah there goes another one. If he was a Chief Petty Officer maybe he would have got away with it - but let's be more thrilling and chance our special invincibility...

I know someone who lies openly - in a lecture they reference The Talented Mr Ripley - daring, chancing it - It's worked so far for this eminent-in-their-field person.... Maybe one day they'll also go too far...

@BecalmedBrandy , really hope you're feeling better BTW

Yes, Hannah I-M, the Fake Admiral and others operate in a very similar way. Does the truth always out? Maybe not, but sufficient numbers seem to overstretch and come unstuck. Probably not all of them by any means, though.

I'm not sure if they don't convince themselves that what they are saying is true, TBH. I certainly couldn't live with the fear of being disclosed they seem comfortable with.

You prompted me to re-read my post to check I hadn't been really weird! Well no more than usual ... so it's not the opioids then.

It is nice of you to think of me ... it was funny when some of the others suggested we'd been targeted. If only I was that influential.

I have had stiches out of head and cast off of hand. But still pins sticking out so clunkily keying with one hand.

Oh @BecalmedBrandy you weren't being weird at all! I just think a few of us have had an unreasonably hard time and although we can't really (can we?) blame *Salray hexes, I have much fellow feeling. It sounds like small steps forwards for you but the pins! You really have been through it.

*If PRH produces a grimoire by 'Anon' , all bets are off.

Lots of love and support for you both @BecalmedBrandy and @Uricon2 tablet, hot toddies and plenty of Simon Armitage. Yes. I think she piggybacked on Simon’s ‘Walking Away’ too. Good choice of verb.

Her nature writing isn't even up to par with many other lesser-known authors who put some nature into their fiction works,and she can't do character to save her life, there's no growth or change or character arc in any of the books - unless you count the very practical 'Moth walks, Moth gets better.' She pretends there is with all her 'we discovered ourselves through nature', but you can't keep that going for book after book after book because - let's face it, when you've discovered your own real true nature there's not much further you can go!

I know non-fiction is different from fiction; that it doesn't necessarily have to have the same outcomes and endings, but surely we expect something more than pages of bland and mostly borrowed description? OWH will either have to be eye-opening in a literary way or a recanting of mistakes made in the first books otherwise, truly what IS the point to it?

@NaughtyNoodler

• she was the beneficiary of the largesse of the UK's generous welfare and educational system in the form of weekly tax credits and a student loan for Moth to complete a 3 year degree as a mature student

This extract, from another brilliant summary, and the mentioning of doing up the Welsh property, brought another issue to me.

With only one part-time wage between them they would have been under the threshold to contribute to their childrens' degrees too. The stealing of £64,000 would have been a double benefit - all that untaxed money/no contribution to education.

Thanks to all of us for supporting three of their degrees, one novel and one true non-fiction memoir.
😱

I suppose the point for her diehard fans is purely a mixture of 'What happened next?' and 'I like the way her books make me feel' (the latter for me is actually a function of her blah writing and consistent depiction of herself as a mumsy, ordinary type, shy in crowds but alive in wild nature, for readers who don't want to be too elevated, or confronted with something unachievable and challenging.)

There's a certain Hallmark card type consistency, I think, which is confirmed by the strong 'branding' of the Angela Harding cover images. You know exactly what you're getting when you open a RW book, if you're a certain type of reader.

This is true - and the dispiriting fact is that the more chaotic and unaffordable general life becomes, the more readers gravitate towards comfort and 'cosy reads'. My own agent keeps trying to encourage me to write 'the same book only different' over and over because some readers like predictability with nothing too 'hard' - no long words or challenging situations.

So I suppose part of the success of these books is hitting the 'middle ground', not so totally simple that it's just a tale of people walking, but no words you'd have to look up or situations that mean you'd have to stretch imagination to put yourself in her shoes. She hit a sweet spot.

I wonder how many of the readers also have a secret crush on Moth and buy into 'the greatest love story of all time' aspect of the books from the Mars bar tea dipping to the walks against adversity.

@HumoursofBandon There's a certain Hallmark card type consistency, I think, which is confirmed by the strong 'branding' of the Angela Harding cover images. You know exactly what you're getting when you open a RW book, if you're a certain type of reader.

Yes, I think this must be it. I've been sent back a few decades to remember what it's made me think of.... Patience Strong.

SalRay is the contemporary, prose version of Patience Strong.

Oh my God!!! I had forgotten what little I had ever known about Patience Strong. (Not from UK, so she may loom less large.)

I am now completely fascinated by her. I suspect her ideas about ethnicity and colonisation would not bear much enquiry -- she seems weirdly obsessed with the 'Anglo-Saxon race' being appointed by God and also 'not being of Europe'.

DH has just phoned me from a work trip and I have quoted 'Trust the Hand the works the looms of Destiny!' to him. So he thinks I have gone mad.

It's funny to think back to my own initial response to reading TSP. I did Google variations on 'Raynor Winn courtcase' etc at the time, because I did, in fairness to me, think that the reason they lost the house sounded as if there must be a lot more to it. I then was very struck by the fact that 'Raynor Winn' appeared to have no online existence that predated TSP and its promotion.

But there was nowhere to go with that, so I put it out of my mind. I did think it was odd, though.

And like more than one pp, I was always struck by how angry, bitter and mean-spirited the book's depiction of most other people was, including benefactors. But I thought that was actually brave, that RW hadn't sanitised the fact that becoming suddenly homeless and discovering that your husband had a terminal illness isn't going to turn you into a warm and fuzzy Pollyanna. I thought it was a conscious writing and editorial decision, to depict herself as furious and vengeful and envious.

Thanks - I'm very interested in the way you thought about the very mean side.

That was going to be the other side of the coin question, from me, to you previous readers. How can these beautifully packaged thoughts be so deeply unpleasant? How can such an unattractive mind enhance Gigspanner?

I've had an unpleasant fall but why should that justify me being critical of the hair and clothes of people who haven't? This is plainly not a nice book.

(Maybe you have an unusually calm and generous temperament, @BecalmedBrandy? I'm absolutely dreadful at pain, and when I was in (non-progressing) labour with DS I stalked the house with my TENS machine and ice cubes, feeling absolutely murderous towards the world at large....)

I think, looking back, that I hadn't absorbed the idea that at least some readers of TSP clearly have/had, that this was an inspirational and 'lovely' book about lovely people being lovely and the intended effect being inspirational and uplifting. I wasn't expecting 'lovely'.

I think I was approaching it more as an 'unflinching' memoir, and for me, the unflinchingness included the acknowledgement (as I thought), by the author that her state of mind when they walked the path was frequently angry, bitter and self-righteous towards other people. I assumed SW was making a point by not editing that out, or pretending she was grateful to the people who'd helped them, any more than she was pretending they always smelled nice on the path.

I think I did notice that she wasn't nice about Jan or Polly when I first read it, but again, I thought that including her 'unfair' feelings about them was a kind of honesty. I thought it made for uncomfortable reading, and I do remember wondering whether her editor had asked whether she was sure about some of it, given how bad it made her look, but again, I thought this was supposed to be the point. Sort of 'Here I am, warts and all. Excuse me for not behaving like a saint when I'd just lost my home and was reduced to living in a tent with my dying DH. Would you?'

I think I may have read TSP after I read Cheryl Strayed's Wild, where she's very upfront about her own heroin use, chronic infidelities etc before she starts her walk, and there are some really difficult scenes like the botched shooting of her mother's horse and missing her death etc. So it may be that I was approaching TSP in the same light?

Good points @BecalmedBrandy . I haven't read the 2 later books, but it doesn't sound like she is much more pleasant about her fellow humans, or less self pitying, which considering she is by that point very comfortably off (possibly pretty rich), well housed and able to go off walking whenever she likes says quite a lot about this being her basic character.

I suppose it is the sort of character that can steal from an employer who is not just a boss but a friend over a long period of time without remorse. A mindset fuelled by resentment, bitterness and envy is unlikely to change IMO and I think we saw evidence of that in her so-called 'rebuttal'. Lots of anger directed at others, no self insight.

@HumoursofBandon quoting Patience Strong at your DH made me laugh! An aunt of mine was veeeery fond of her verse and every Christmas calendars bearing it were scattered around the family by her. Even my Victorian grandmother found them a bit sickly. Ironically, said Aunt was in many respects a piece of work who had a lifelong tendency to leave a trail of destruction in her wake.

Yes, we do make allowances for people’s behaviour when they are suffering hardship. I too found a lot of the shared “inner thoughts” of the author uncomfortable and also thought that it was the “point” to have myself pitched out of my comfort zone and acknowledge the thoughts of this woman and feel pity rather than judgement. How that has changed!! The woman is insufferable. You’ve put it all perfectly @BecalmedBrandy @Uricon2 @HumoursofBandon

The Facebook post above which references Gillian Anderson. I agree, she does deserve an Oscar nomination because her work is superb and she portrayed the character on the page. The love story between them both on the page, is another thing altogether which I believe is largely fictional. Yes, that pp was right, a lot of women do hold that sort of relationship as an idyllic one because of the longevity of it and the apparent feelings between the pair. When we witness relationships crumbling, ending, the false starts of new ones and the endless stories of starting out new again in the mine field that is called “dating”, a comfortable, long marriage is so satisfying to read about. I know that in the book they are thrown out of their comfort but their relationship apparently doesn’t suffer. It’s the stuff of dreams, this strengthening of bonds and being a team working together etc etc I hardly think this portrayal of them is at all true. The harder she works to make it so, the less likely it seems now.

Brilliant point. This nonsense about " well it's not Putin/ Trump etc" is not an argument at all. Is it ok to embezzle a huge sum of money from a small family business just because Putin has allegedly done worse? It's a lazy cop out argument with no substance whatsoever.

And to those of us authors who are struggling hard to make a living from our writing - to see someone who has won an award (the CB award) and had a profile raised by nomination for other awards, who has sold the film rights to their book and who earned a considerable income from all this - it's a slap in the face. The £10k prize money for the CB prize rankles the most at the moment. That is ten thousand pounds that someone who had genuinely never been published before could have won, and which might have made all the difference to their career.

I see the whole TSP fiasco as the Walkers just having profited even more from fraud.

Agree @Vroomfondleswaistcoat . The frauds and dissemblings are not in any way isolated incidents, a 'one off' but several and various, indicative of a mindset that is selfish and highly unscrupulous. The CB prize element must indeed be galling to people working at the craft of writing that 10K could make a big difference for. I wonder if the other nominees that year are aware of the Izzy Wynn Thomas factor?

I was reminded of Patience Strong too.

£10k is about twice the average writing earnings in a year. Writing, certainly in the trenches of the lower midlist, is not well paid. If I were Sal, I'd be sponsoring a writing bursary at least....

I totally agree about that £10k prize and the recognition too that evolves from that. She is so undeserving that it makes me sick also @Vroomfondleswaistcoat . She had no qualms at all about taking that prize. I agree @Uricon2 the ongoing behaviour is indeed selfish and unscrupulous. Just look at what the next project was intended to be. A wellness retreat and her teaching people who want to write. It’s her who should be taking lessons, not giving them. I’m still struggling to believe that someone could set out to fool so many people of all walks of life and take their money, so successfully. Is it the tears and the sorrys that get acted out every time she is confronted?