Thread 26 : To feel disappointed - and disgusted and vindicated now too - after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 25 IS FULL

Please see the OP of Thread 25 for all the links to The Observer's reporting and podcast series, our threads one to 24 and so on.

After 25,000 posts there are still new things to discuss:
BBC Sounds - Secrets of the Salt Path - Available Episodes
If you are posting about a podcast, please start your post with the episode number you are commenting on, for clarity and to help others avoid spoilers if they wish to do so.

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. The Observer's excellent podcast series The Walkers (link in Thread 25) covers most things.
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, 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. For over 8 months we have done amazingly well together for 25 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.

As ever, as we embark on our 26th thread riding the community charabanc, keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 25 IS FULL: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5485730-thread-25-to-feel-disappointed-and-disgusted-and-vindicated-now-too-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

23 Walks didn't exactly blow the lights out when it was released in 2020!

23 Walks - Box Office Mojo

Thanks for sharing - dreary news.

The film's journey to American audiences represents a significant test of whether cinematic merit can transcend literary controversy

The Salt Path Film Heads to US Cinemas Despite Author Controversy - British Brief

Oh no, will this mean more sales of TSP in America? it seems even more imperative that PRH stop promoting the book as an honest memoir. The film doesn't really stand alone, I wonder if Raynor will go stateside to promote it and reinvent herself as Raylene?

Can you say more about this, @ThompsonTwin? As in, do you have some information, even if you can’t say any more? That someone who figures in a section of TSP rewrote the section in which they figure multiple times?

I mean, yes, having a friend as a trusted first reader isn’t unusual. I always read a novelist friend’s work before her agent does, and make suggestions about what needs fixing, and say what’s working well. She trusts me, because I’ve known her work longer than her agent or any of her editors at various publishers, and knows I know what she’s aiming for. And I did ask to be left out of a memoir she wrote about a period living abroad (mostly because I thought the bit where I figured, a rather eerie trip, worked better if I wasn’t in it!)

It’s fairly standard to send people who feature in a memoir the sections where they appear to them ahead of publication, both to check the accuracy of your recollections and so that they’re not going to sue for defamation if they’re identifiable.

But the person who doesn’t like they way they’re represented wouldn’t usually do a rewrite themselves, they’d say what is ‘wrong’, ask for it to be altered and want to see the rewrite.

The mind boggles at what someone in TSP might have found wrong about their portrayal, given that the book is about 90% pure fiction. I mean you can imagine ‘Polly’/‘Anne’ saying ‘But I didn’t force Tim to work in a freezing, half-converted shed all winter and I didn’t throw you out for a paying tenant, I let you stay in a nice holiday let for free for eighteen months despite knowing you’d stolen my grandmother’s life savings, and asked you to move on to another empty family house when I realised you were planning to leech on me forever!’

But ‘Anne’ was clearly never asked about her portrayal…

There aren’t many characters other than the Walkers, anyway, and most of them they would have had no way of contacting… (or they were fictional).

@NervesofSteel I had been wondering about this aspect of what you raise:

There aren’t many characters other than the Walkers, anyway, and most of them they would have had no way of contacting… (or they were fictional).

It appears to be quite random. We know that someone passed on LSB to Chloe but she has not asked permission to name them.

In Radio Wales, Ep. 3, The Walk. We meet up with Tadge again, the former cycling camp site manager, from Treen. This is the alternative guy who hasn't lived in a house for 22 years and the reporter admires where he does live - a tipi. He says he got sent the book - addressed to the local pub! All we then hear is that he did not say the bit attributed to him. He also disputes the nature writing about owls and says that owls are totally silent fliers, unlike in TSP.

Thank you @NervesofSteel for the insight about editing, as you say given that about 90% of the book if fiction, it could have had input from multiple people, some people have speculated that Tim might have written some parts and wikipedia seems responsible for quite a bit, especially on the subject of homelessness and various places that they never visited. I was intrigued by someone (I can't remember who sorry) posting that Anne is writing a book, I wonder what her book will be about? I do hope it isn't about how her aunt found herself embroiled in scandal because of her love and adoration of her husband, I felt Anne was pushing the narrative in that direction.

I’m outside the UK so I haven’t got to that episode yet (Spotify seems to be uploading a new one every Thursday, but episode three won’t land till this coming Thursday). So Tadge was sent a copy of TSP via the local pub!😀 Did he ask for alterations to the way he was represented ahead of publication? Though CH’s contact with him seemed to suggest he disputed the published version?

But it’s more interesting that PRH were clearly doing some version of the usual memoir-checking by attempting to clear representations of potentially identifiable people, if a proof MS was sent to as minor a figure as Tadge, who gets one line in one scene. How can ‘Anne’ not have been sent a copy for checking, then, as she clearly wasn’t if she didn’t know ‘Raynor Winn” was her Aunt Sally and was hurt and surprised by her misrepresentation as slave-driving ‘Polly’?

@NervesofSteel @ThompsonTwin. Maybe it is ‘Julie’ and ‘Dave’ - as apparently the author was more generous to them in how they appeared within the story (so maybe that is why??). Maybe ‘Julie’ has also had editorial input into the storyline about homelessness, and you can sort of see how this may have come about… it may have been considered that strengthening the parts of the story that touch on homelessness would not necessarily detract from the ‘truth’ of the story, but could be seen as highlighting the issues, in an important way, from a platform that might reach a huge number of people - so may have been something that ‘Julie’ was happy to do, given her professional background and probably her strong interest in highlighting the issues. This is obviously just wild (and idle) (and uninformed) speculation…

Well, it’s true that very few people other than the Walkers themselves feature at all prominently, and most of those who do are either fictitious (‘Cooper’, the Cambridge actors at the Minack) or uncontactable (the homeless men in Plymouth), or both (the woodland homeless community). ‘Polly’ was apparently not checked with. The Parsons weren’t. You’re right that Dave and Julie seem like the only other people who feature prominently enough to need to be checked with.

What Tadge say is "the book" so I was left wondering if this was a copy of the published TSP or the pre-publication LSB. We could contact The Logan Rock Inn and ask! (this is where I think it must be but as it would have been in 2018....)

I think your speculation is probably correct @Stoufer , Julie would have been able to help Raynor with the more detailed descriptions of homelessness, she might have done so unwittingly, just by talking about her work. It also seems plausible that Raynor would ask Julie to read those parts. I haven't listened to all of the episodes yet, so Tadge was sent a copy of the book @MulberryBrandy, but not consulted before publication, so he couldn't change the way he was portrayed.

@Freshsocks - I think we just crossed in the most recent posts! Just to say, the niece who has been writing a book for some time is Cecille in France. So the daughter of Martyn, Tim's niece, not Anne who is Sal's niece. This was in The Observer, Ep. 5 The French Quarter.

Thank you @MulberryBrandy, I'm relieved it's Cecille and not Anne, I was starting to think the whole clan were taking up the pen :)

OK, so we’re not in the territory of ‘due diligence’ at all then, other than in the instance @ThompsonTwin references…

Why, I wonder would you send a copy of your newly published book to a man in a single scene whom you’ve represented, or misrepresented, as an unpleasant campsite tyrant with a clipboard?

I assumed that someone who knew Tadge had sent the book to him- rather than the publisher or Sally. But I was driving while listening so I may have missed something.

I have noticed that we have felt that some of the extra input about homelessness has been added into the story. This is obviously the way it seemed to readers anyway coupled with the more recent revelation of 'Julie's' expertise.

The interesting aspect that I have noticed is that earlier on in these threads it was the concentration on the medical condition that appeared to be accentuated and emphasised, retrospectively into the narrative.

I remember that there was an incipient story in Izzy about a romp through the whole UK. Well maybe that was to start in the far SW and the Walkers' son was there anyway. Their actual story was more like HNTDDD and instead of merging in with the idea of 3 Mountains and a Ceilidh and traversing the country they stuck with the SWCP, as outlined by Simon and 500MW.

Add in, the losing of their home became homelessness and Moth's well-known 'illnesses' became a terminal diagnosis. TSP is such a patchwork that it could easily have been reworked. It is "that Path" that gives it any sort of firm foundation and continuity.

It is a patchwork @MulberryBrandy, it's making me think about some traditional patchwork quilts, different people are sent a patch piece to embroider or decorated in some way, the piece is then added in to the final quilt. Raynor uses everyone she comes across who is useful to her, I don't think Sally much bothers with those who are not, Raynor has not been constrained by the expected level of truth in writing her memoir, she can construct and patch her narrative however she wants, all stitched together and sown firmly to the path.

Just seen my spelling mistake, sewn not sown, sorry @Vroomfondleswaistcoat :)

It's fine, I had my teeth gritted anyway!

What a perfect way of expressing it all! Also “sown to the path” works very well in this instance.
Raynor Winn is also a patchwork character that Sally was enjoying to wear. She recites phrases such as the ones I’ve mentioned before but they all sound very bad as though the stitching is weak, the stuffing has come out and the batteries need changing. The effect now is of inauthenticity. Sally has lost her grip on her own creation and can’t hide behind it or use it any more.

On another note, regarding the film, it ought to have a disclaimer now saying that it is loosely based on some events in the author’s life… but is mostly fiction.

The film is well placed to win awards apparently!!!!

The Salt Path’ as a potential awards-season contender thanks to its strong performances and uplifting message.

The photo of GA and Sal. I mean really?

Tim and Sal must have been levitating in the stratosphere when it emerged that a plasterer from Burton-on-Trent and a stockman's daughter from Dunstall were to be depicted on the silver screen by GA and JI. It doesn't get much better than that.

Maybe that was indeed their apogee. The X Files meets Harry Potter.

Reversion to reality, Icarus style. It's a Greek tragedy that Sophocles would have been proud of. Truth or fiction? It's compelling drama either way!

TSP hasn’t a hope of any awards, surely? Any Academy or prize jury member has only to Google, and no film wins awards without a huge, targeted campaign headed by its stars. JI and GA may well be compelled by their contracts to do a certain amount of publicity, and not to damage its chances by being frank about the truth, but I can’t imagine anyone can require them to lie?

But might they get away with it in America? So far from the origin; from the people who were harmed, might they not get away with 'a pretty film about a nice place in the UK with familiar faces and a cute story'? Is anyone in the US really going to care about a small scandal in the UK that doesn't affect them in any way?

The film will be regarded as separate to the books - did the books even do well in the US? There's the chance that nobody has even heard of them over there and the film wins awards for cinematography and being cute.

How is it going to work I wonder, if people in America have read and enjoyed the book and the scandal hasn't reached them yet, then the film being released will generate a renewed interest in the fate of Raynor and Moth. Much the same as here, people will be wondering if Moth is still alive, it's been such a long time for a man with CBD to have survived. I couldn't find a break down of how well the book did in America @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, but with renewed interest will the scandal start to be reported on, I'm sure there will be some social media people who will want report on the UK controversy for an American audience.

I don't think the film is that emotionally moving or powerful, GA comes across as slightly gormless, it could become popular if the actors actively promote the film, which they might have to do if contracted to, but they can't as you say @NervesofSteel, be required to lie. I just wonder why this decision has been made, I know money will be involved :) but how are they envisioning the money being made, by people watching the film and finding it beautiful and a story of triumph over adversity, or making money from people wanting to see it because of the controversy.