Is mis lit dead now that accusations flying alot of it made up?

[christie1]

I read in yesterdays telegraph an article that said some big mis lit (misery literature) has been made up. In particular the book about magdelene laundries which was made into a movie was untrue. (sorry I can't do the link). Don't kill me here but I have never considered accounts of true events real literature because you are just recounting an event, like a news article, albeit, some do it really really well. I don't read alot of these books but the few I have read, get suspicious after a while if they go too far. I often wonder if you can come up with this stuff and write it well, why not just write a book of fiction (like james frey and the oprah scandal and his made up account of his drug addicted life-why didn't he just write it as fiction?) Is this the end of htat genre?

I don't understand the appeal of these. They seem like that mad Flowers in the Attic shite, only a) those were terrifying shite and b) they were amusing, kinda. Sorta. When I was 12.

for peacelily. I was given a copy of FCTM by a family friend who said the heroine reminded her of me. I think maybe she was trying to be kind about my parents getting divorced or something.

WHY do I always see those books on the bestseller list every week?

WHO is buying this tosh?

Ahh, Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind and The seeds of Yesterday, scarily fascinating, and utter crap but almost compulsory between the ages of 12-14!

Yes, they were great, weren't they. Misery lit, but a) it didn't pretend to be real b) there was ballet c) there were albinos, or nearly so anyway d) there was poisoning, with arsenic e) there was sexy incest.

What more could you look for in a book?

I really dislike the mis lit stuff to, especially the way it is marketed. But I do enjoy a good biography, and have read both the political/historical ones (only well reviewed nat) and also the more personal, including on eor two about people coming through experiences such as having polio, or living through the old mental institutions. I guess these might be clasified as mis lit now? I don't think they wallowed though, which is the impression that I get about this genre (having never read any of them, but glanced in intrigued horror at book jackets).

Look at this cheerie selection

I wouldn't include Frank McCourt in the mis lit category. his stories were of a tough, impoverished childhood in Ireland but there's a lot of humour in them. A bit different from the 'please daddy, no' type.

Sleepycat, I too am pg and have been unable to read anything where a child is even vaguely unhappy!

God they're awful. I purposefully steer my 4 year old away from the stnd in whsMITHS, OR i HAVE 20 MINUTES OF "mUMMY, WHY IS THAT GIRL SAD? wHY DID IT SAY 'dADDY' ON IT/ wAS THAT GIRL A DADDY/ dID HER DADDY BE HORRIBLE TO HER AND NOT LET HER HAVE HER MARBLES OUT COS OF HER BABY BROTHER?"

SSmall amount of transference going on there, son?

Just on the Magdalene Laundry thing and whether it was made up or not, the original work on that was a play called Eclipsed by Patricia Burke-Brogan, that would have been in the 80s I think, but it was never put forward as being a memoir. Similarly the film, which was in 2002, was fiction.

There was a book about 2 years ago called Kathy's Story which was a memoir of life in the Laundries - and someone else has subsequently written trying to disprove its veracity.

Anyway seems like very small beer now I've typed the whole thing out! But don't confuse misery memoir with misery fiction (or literature as OP writes). The Magdalene Sisters was not based on an untrue memoir, it was a piece of fiction.

Quick Hyjack: Hello Christie1! Are you still in the UK then?

We are in Geneva. It would be great to hear from you...

I read ' A Child Called "It"', the 1995 memoir by American Dave Pelzer about his horrible childhood and it made me feel so ill that I couldn't even consider trying another of book like it. Has his story been 'outed' as fictitious as well?

I hope that it is the end of this gerne. Isn't 13 years enough?

Did you hear about the woman who claimed to have been raised by wolves while being chased by the Nazis?

And another woman who claimed to be half Native American, fostered and drug-running on the streets of LA. TUrned out she was white, privately educated, raised by her family and had no criminal record. Amazingly she agreed to give an interview to the New York Times and was shopped by her sister as a fraud.

It's the titles that get me - "Oh mummy, please no, why oh why, betrayed abused and abandoned" etc etc.

my favourite is, "Ma he sold me for a few cigarettes" (favourite title that is, I've never read one)

and sorry, in answer to the OP no, I don't think they are dead. Unfortunately. People have always had an appetite for other people's misery it's just in late years publishers have become more shameless about catering to that need.

50 years ago it would have been housewives hanging over the garden fence exchanging horror stories, now we are more shy in person but less shy in print.

James Frey apparently DID write the book originally as fiction, but couldn't sell it. Wasn't until he rewrote in the first person as "true" that he got a publishing deal

OMG Buckets, my old boss wrote a (tiny and pretty neutral) review of that book and the author phone-stalked her!

Well I shall be pissed off if the genre is now dead, because I have been plotting writing my own (under a false name with no checkable details, natch). Perhaps you'd all like to help me with a suitable title. So far I've scribbled down:

'The Bloke Down The Road Used To Look At Me Funny'

'They Wouldn't Buy Me A Racing Car'

'They Murdered Me ONce A Week then Dug Me Up and Did It Again. WHile looking at Porn On The Internet'.

'WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!'

Saw this: Ma, He Sold me for a Few Cigarettes the other day and honestly thought it was a pisstake! Incredibly, it isn't.

There were allegations years ago that Dave Pelzar was a pack of lies, doesn't seem to have affected sales.

I am genuinely boggled about the size of the market for this sort of stuff. There does seem to have been some sort of change in attitudes over the last few years where stuff that is presented as 'true' is preferred to fiction to the extent that some people seem to think you can't write a book worth reading if you haven;t had a horrible life. I have flicked through one or two of these yucky things (when the other girls left them in the office and I had read everything of my own) but never been able to persevere mainly because they are all so badly written. Give me a good evisceration/torture/shambling zombies work of pulp fiction any day.

its amazing, these books are usually 8/10 of the top 10 best sellers EVERY WEEK!! who buys this crap? why would anybody want to read it?

For cadmum, no, sadly back in the deep freeze of ottawa. Geneva, sounds exciting, I am jealous. Missing being overseas very badly.

Sorry ...Hyjack again for Christie1: Nice to hear from you! Happy Easter. Geneva is great! If you email me here: ernie_coombs at hotmail dot com I can send you a 'real' address. and some recent photos of my clan.

I would love to hear about the last part of your year in the UK. Last I heard was just before Charlie was 1... I am pathetic at staying in touch and by the time I emailed you, the email just bounced back...

madamez funniest post ever