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?

She’s certainly clearly fine with her family and ILs thinking, understandably, that she’s a grasping, lying, conniving, cold-blooded thief, prepared to exploit the trust and vulnerability of her widowed elderly mother and her in-laws, having run out of opportunities to embezzle from her employer.

And if she’s ok with that, I suppose it’s not too much of a stretch to think she’s perfectly able to tolerate the general public thinking of her as a compulsive liar and con artist, prepared to make money from three books and a film pretending her husband has a horrible terminal illness.

But, on the other hand, her family’s only weapon was potentially to report to the police, and she managed to head that off.

Whereas the general public, the publishing industry, reviewers, the arts scene in general and the organisers of literary festivals, do have the power to end her success as a writer. If what CH’s investigations have uncovered has put off her fans, exposed failures at her publishers, meant that she’s no longer invited to festivals or onto chat show sofas, dumped by Gigspanner and Arvon, meant that reviewers will regard future books with a more jaundiced eye etc etc, will SW go quietly and live on her previous earnings, or will she fight?

I suppose the one big loss that’s already happened as a result of the Observer investigations (if we still run with OWH technically being postponed rather than cancelled) is that, to the best of my knowledge, the film of TSP never found a US distributor, and possibly wasn’t sold much outside the UK at all?

Presumably, depending on the terms of her contract, this would have severely cut down on SW’s earnings from the film.

Might the prospect of her loss of reputation severely curtailing future earnings (and possibly meaning royalties for her three books tail off), make her decide to fight back?

It certainly seems just as you have set out. There is never any glimmer of contrition for misdeeds with Sally Walker.

when life has ground you into the dirt, you need to stand up, turn your face to the wind, and continue, unafraid. So that is what I must do. (Raynor Winn, July statement)

They were still in the same area as the Hemmings when they were marketing HNTDDD and this was 4 years later. The fact that this novel echoes what happened in reality, Sal's stealing, must be the reason why they did not offer it to Steve the bookshop owner who was friendly with Tim. They then thought to cover their tracks over that by saying that he would not take the books.

The recent IG photos shared by Raynor Winn appear to be her dipping her toe in the water. I know that @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree noticed that she loses so many followers each time - I sincerely hope this means the temperature remains cold for any further activity from her.

With regards to her 'fans', it seems to me that many of these have neither read OC's Observer pieces, listened to the podcasts, nor watched the Sky documentary...probably out of sheer indignation that their beloved Raynor could be accused of telling porkies.

As a result I fear that these gullible souls remain wilfully blissfully ignorant of the facts unearthed by OC, particularly regarding the thefts and believe - erroneously - that all Sally Walker is guilty of is a) changing her and Tim's names (which many writers do - we personally know a novelist who has published under four or five nom de plumes and she's not doing it to evade debt collectors!), b) massaging the truth around dates/places/people encountered on the SWCP and c) possibly conflating two possible causes of how they came to lose Pen y Maes (most people, imo, have sympathy for the repossessed and would probably overlook any less than savoury reasons for it happening in order to blame 'the establishment' or some other nameless entity).

If they are aware that something was stolen, they probably don't appreciate the extent of what was involved - I mean, most generously minded people would probably overlook the pilfering of a few chocolate bars by someone (supposedly) on the verge of starvation. But would they so readily forgive the despicable systematic stealing from an elderly parent or the long term embezzlement from a decent man and his family who had treated SW and TW as friends?

As for the potentially fraudulent claims of terminal illness - would anyone in their right mind think this was an ok thing to do? Again, I'm guessing these fans (having refused to read/listen to the revelations), stubbornly clinging to their 'child of nature' heroine and her dashing cravatted husband, aren't cognisant of the view posited by the expert interviewed by OC who stated that medical miracles don't happen (and that if Tim is an anomaly, he'd be the subject of much interest/investigation by the medical world!)

Unfortunately, as they say "you can lead a horse to water...."

Die hard fans like Bob Cook! Although he claims to have read all three of her books.

It is like the Gweek resident, who is quoted a few times by BBC Wales, who knows about the controversy but has been completely smitten so it is Moth's freedom that is this man's biggest influence. This is all because Moth is a symbol of freedom. I assume this reader must be completely sold on this passage:

it was the anti-establishment, anti-control sense of rebellion that drove me to run as hard as I could towards Moth and his belief that freedom is the most important right we have.

Well, you can intuit a lot about Bob Cook's likely political opinions from his references to the Terrible Things Happening In This Country that he feels Chloe H should be turning her attention to, and none of what you might intuit is good.

I'm baffled by why he thinks that 2008 is so long ago that it somehow doesn't matter, and it's weird of a journalist to keep banging on about crimes committed in 2008. Is he confusing it with 1908?

And there will always be one of those Freeman on the Land loons who see the fictional Moth (rather than the real TW) as some kind of Sticking It To the Man symbol because he didn't pay for a night in a campsite or go into council accommodation.

I wonder whether Bob Cook might change his mind if you said the Walkers were longtime benefit scroungers and fake PIP claimants, as well as thieves and scam artists? That strikes me as one of the Terrible Things he may think are Happening in This Country.

The books are still selling.

That's fact. Not in the vast, crate-load quantities that they were, but there are still people buying, even after all this has come out about the Walkers. So there will be many reasons for this.
Some people haven't heard anything about the controversy.
Some people don't care - they've rationalised away everything as a misunderstanding or people having it 'in' for the Walkers.
Some people are just grimly fascinated and want to read the books.

So the books are still earning for Sal. Unless and until PRH pulled all the books from sale, she is going to continue to earn - and this could go on for YEARS. At what point does it become 'living off the proceeds of a crime'?

Bob Cook…. I pity you. It sounds like he’s in love with Raynor Winn. I bet she’d toy with him for a while then spit him out on the doormat.

when life has ground you into the dirt, you need to stand up, turn your face to the wind, and continue, unafraid. So that is what I must do. (Raynor Winn, July statement)

I do really resent that she’s dragged the wind into all of her stupid mannerisms. It’s just taken for granted that she can plant her fizzog into the wind and the wind won’t mind! Life too! Life didn’t grind her into the dirt, she did it all by herself. I hope the wind darts out of the way next time.

Indeed! Poor wind! What's it done to deserve her?!?

As for Bob - he sounds like a bit of a knob 😂

Bob comes under the 'everyone is just a big meanie and a bully' label.

He also struggles with an inability to use Spellcheck, so I am not going to credit him with a great analytical mind.

There’ll be a very rowdy meeting called by the sun for all the elements and atmospheres soon: wind, many shapes and sizes of raindrops, all the cloud patterns, the sea. I think they’re all perfectly sick of being used by Sally Walker for her Raynor Winn alter ego without their knowledge or consent. I’m absolutely sure that they are fed up of her walking into them and using them as fortune cracker prose and props for her denial.

*Adds "meteorological phenomena" to the long list of winn-appropriations. 🌬🌫❄️⚡️🌪🌤🌧🌌🌊🌋

BBC Wales Ep. 2 Escape to the Countryside

Interesting that when the Aston Uni researchers were asked to do a linguistic analysis of TSP/HNTDDD re: authorship they found the texts were "giving agency to the noun, the wind". They also found the echoing of "patch of land" and various things were "aching". Yes, there would have been a lot of belly-aching!

This then led in to the solicitor's letter admitting that Raynor Winn is the author of both. We had previously wondered about the hand-written letters/the typed confession. I know there would be nothing like the amount of words to analyse but I find her writing very emotive, repetitive and perhaps certain phrases would be indicating a strong suggestion of the same person. I mean, who else could it be?

@MulberryBrandy

I know there would be nothing like the amount of words to analyse but I find her writing very emotive, repetitive and perhaps certain phrases would be indicating a strong suggestion of the same person. I mean, who else could it be?

I would guess that Sal's argument would be that it might be someone trying to discredit her. Although that begs the question of who and why anyone would want to - she'd plead jealousy because she is DESPERATE to be an object of envy. It's not very plausible, given that she does a pretty good job of discrediting herself and doesn't really need any help, but it's the defence that she would use, I think. Her sycophants will believe it and everyone else will just roll their eyes.

With regards to her 'fans', it seems to me that many of these have neither read OC's Observer pieces, listened to the podcasts, nor watched the Sky documentary...probably out of sheer indignation that their beloved Raynor could be accused of telling porkies

See 'Tristan' in the last episode of the BBC podcast, who demands 'show me the evidence'. Well, er, we’re on thread 26 so that’s quite a lot of evidence, but I guess you can’t argue with stupid. Although he was being asked to comment on a podcast critical of Saltim so he must at least have been slightly aware of the evidence, and he’s still defending his heroine.

More worrying is the group of creative writing MA candidates in the same episode, only one of whom was unambiguous that something marketed as a memoir needed to be factual and true. Another even tries to argue that a book is a collaborative effort and poor Salray might have been pressured into what she did by other people. Diddums.

Another even tries to argue that a book is a collaborative effort and poor Salray might have been pressured into what she did by other people. Diddums.

Even if she DID take advice or guidance or even was pressured into steering the book into certain directions - the fault still lies with the author. This is where the buck stops. Because the author always has the option of saying 'no, that's not the direction I want to take the book.'

Admittedly, most people with a first book accepted by a publisher or agent, where there is an element of "the book will probably go down better if you introduce a bit of ....(whatever)" are not going to say no, because that can lead to the book being dropped. BUT they don't have a leg to stand on because it is still the author that does the work to change the story to add whatever they were advised to put in. They could have said no. If their desire to be published exceeds their desire to tell the truth - that's on them.

So we'll put @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, Salray had the ultimate power, I initially thought that the agent might have influenced her, but then it was found that Salray sought out an agent that had experience of misery publishing, Salray knew exactly what she was doing.

Thank you, I’d forgotten that about the misery publishing. Choosing that path for a book and then abusing the genre and wringing as much pity out of her audience as she could, is entirely in her character on and off the page.

In my experience, agents and editors want a book that works, and will often flag up a problem with an MS by suggesting a solution (more plot needed in middle third, backstory needed to explain why X does Y, more upbeat ending etc) but ultimately, it’s on the author to come up with their own solution to the problem, one that they’re happy with and that doesn’t do violence to their conception of what the book is. I think where trouble can arise is when the author and agent/ editor have different ideas about what the book is. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that this was the case with TSP, though.

No, it doesn’t seem as though that was the case with TSP because of all the questions around the house repossession for one thing (even more vague in the film). I suppose if there had been any suggestions or problems flagged for Sally, she just shut them down or diverted them. Perhaps she used excuses such as some events were too painful for her to dwell on and the story was The Path and what happened on it. It was all a holiday anyway. She succeeded in turning a series of holidays in which they were skiving work and hiding from debt collectors into the story of a hair-shirted, saintly couple struggling against every conceivable misfortune an underdog could possibly have thrown at it. A dying man comes back to life, which is miraculous but oddly not the subject of countless medical experiments or studies or front page news.

Here is a question. Would it be normal for an author (such as Sal) to submit the text of a book to a "friend" for editing and for that "friend" to have edited (the same bit of the manuscript)10+ times?

Would it also be normal for an author to submit the text of a book to a "friend" who had zero experience of editing but was familiar with the underlying story of parts of the book and figured in the bit of the story where editing was requested.....?

She could, of course, do that. But there is editing and editing. Editing for publication needs a professional. A friend could well have suggested changes (editors don't make the changes, they just suggest to the author what might be done to tighten the story, make it clearer etc) but the publisher will still employ editors who will go over the whole thing.

But the author makes the changes. And even if the editor makes a small tweak here and there, the author still has to sign off on the proofs. There is never a case where a book goes to publish with changes made that the author has not seen.

Which is why the author bears ultimate responsibility.

Well well, the abysmal movie lives on for a US release.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/salt-path-movie-release-us-raynor-winn-scandal-b2947584.html

Pretty low key distribution I would imagine. Rialto seem to specialise in low budget movies including stuff about walking! I guess TSP might appeal to a certain schmaltzy audience! MAybe it should be rebranded as Mission Improbable!

23 Walks | Rialto Distribution