In any medium, there is always a risk for forgeries and hoaxes......but not according to these people!
Here are some infamous literary hoaxes and forgeries.
Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks
“I had found the perfect and true and original language, used by Adam and Eve, but when I tried to explain, the words I used had little to do with my thinking. I was losing it, it was slipping out of my grasp, this wonderful and priceless and true thing which must be saved for posterity. I felt terrible, and finally I couldn’t talk at all and slumped back onto the floor, closed my eyes and the music began to absorb me physically. I could smell it and touch it and feel it as well as hear it. Never had anything ever been so beautiful. I was a part of every single instrument, literally a part. Each note had a character, shape and color all its very own and seemed to be entirely separate from the rest of the score so that I could consider its relationship to the whole composition, before the next note sounded. My mind possessed the wisdoms of the ages, and there were no words adequate to describe them.”
(what 15 year old talks like this outside of Dawson's Creek btw?)
One of the more infamous literary works, Go Ask Alice was the brainchild of American therapist, Mormon youth counselor (before the age of websites like MormonBoyz), and Grade-A Asshole Beatrice Sparks. Sparks, a certified douchebag, wrote this incredibly ficticious story of the unnamed protagonist, as she battles a drug habit as a teenager and runs away from home, hitting facefirst into a wall of coke, sex with drug dealers, and prostitutes. Touted as a "true story" Sparks the Shitstirrer kept coy about the truth behind the book, until her death, when it was revealed she wrote these so called "real diaries" of troubled teens. And in case you are wondering why I am shaming her, here's some rather depressing trivia for you: In 1973, after GAA was published, a young mother came to Sparks for help, asking her to help edit her deceased son's journal. Sparks agreed to the job, and she took the writings of a depressed son who killed himself at 16 years old and transformed them into elegant and moving passages-just kidding. This bitch wrote Jay's Journal, turning the child's journals into stories about fake shit, such as his involvement with a satanic cult. Sparks then had the gall to claim she got the material from family friends of the mother and son who killed himself. So yes, Sparks deserves every bad name that she has been called. Fucking cunt. But now she's dead, so that's good.
Laurel Rose Wilson
Agencies such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Cult Crime Impact Network, and the National Coalition Against Pornography have used Ms. Stratford’s expertise and experience in recognizing satanic ritualistic abuse. Ms. Stratford also provides valuable assistance in the counseling and treatment of survivors of satanic crimes and child abuse.
…Ms. Stratford, a member of the Los Angeles County Women’s Commission Task Force on Ritual Abuse, helped edit the country’s first government-sponsored information booklet on the topic. She is also a member of Make Today Count, an international support group for people with life-threatening illnesses, and has organized a support group called Victims Against Sexual Abuse…
Laurel Rose Wilson was a woman living in Washington, who spun false tales about how she endured time as a baby breeder in a satanic ritual abuse cult. She published her book Satan's Underground under the name Lauren Stratford, and she also claimed that she had first-hand knowledge about the various satanic abuse cases occurring in the 70's and 80's. Her claims were dismissed as her just bullshitting. A Christian philosophy husband/wife author team eventually uncovered the truth, Laurel Stratford was actually Laurel Rose Wilson, a woman suffering from a long history of mental illness and making up false allegations of abuse. Her other claims included claiming to have given birth to three children as a result of rape; two were allegedly killed in snuff films, and the third was supposedly sacrificed in her presence at a Satanic ritual. Her books were withdrawn, and she quietly vanished...only to reemerge in 1999 claiming to be a Holocaust survivor named Lauren Grabowski. She befriended a guy who was later revealed to also be faking his claims of being a Holocaust survivor. Wilson died in 2002.
The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter/Asa Earl Carter
“Grandma said [...] when you come on something that is good, first thing to do is share it with whoever you can find; that way, the good spreads out to where no telling it will go.”
Praised by Oprah (be prepared to see her name a lot. she has a thing for Holocaust memoirs and she gets duped a lot by fake books....oh she also supports a homophobic preacher) as being "very spiritual", this story of a Cherokee Indian named Forrest Carter living in the Appalachian Mountains became an overnight success. Until the 1990's when it was revealed that the author was actually Asa Earl Carter, a Caucasian KKK member and segregationist political figure in Alabama. So basically the opposite of Rachel Dolezal...but ten times worse. He's also dead.
James Frey
“The first time I saw you, my heart fell. The second time I saw you, my heart fell. The third time fourth time fifth time and every time since, my heart has fallen.
I stared at her.
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Your hair, your eyes, your lips, your body that you haven't grown into, the way you walk, smile, laugh, the way your cheeks drop when you're mad or upset, the way you drag your feet when you're tired. Every single thing about you is beautiful.
I stared at her.
When I see you the World stops. It stops and all that exists for me is you and my eyes staring at you. There's nothing else. No noise, no other people, no thoughts or worries, no yesterday, no tomorrow. The World just stops and it is a beautiful place and there is only you. Just you, and my eyes staring at you.
I stared.
When you're gone, the World starts again, and I don't like it as much. I can live in it, but I don't like it. I just walk around in it and wait to see you again and wait for it to stop again. I love it when it stops. It's the best fucking thing I've ever known or ever felt, the best thing, and that, beautiful Girl, is why I stare at you.”
James Frey...good GOD James Frey. Frey published his instant bestseller A Million Little Pieces in 2003, touting it as a harrowing memoir about his experience with....well just the worst luck in the world. Oprah embraced this novel, because she has to or people won't read it. His success wouldn't last however, as it was revealed he fabricated parts of his memoir and other books as well. The authenticity was called into question, leading to a particularly infamous episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show where she confronted him about his falsities, tearing him a new asshole in the process, because when Oprah puts your book on her Book Club list, you better not be a lying hack. Frey later suffered serious depression. In October of this year, it was announced that predator Sam Taylor-Johnson and her groomed husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson were working on a film adaptation of Frey's book. (BTW ATJ's stepdaughter is only a few years younger than him. Let that sink in.) Frey and Oprah allegedly made up later on btw.
Michelle Remembers
The title image at the top of your screen. This book was later debunked as false. Sensing a theme here? Written by a psychologist, Michelle Remembers is the tale of Michelle
Next time: How Opal Mehta Managed to Make Her Life Incredibly Similar to Other Published Works, Margaret Seltzer and her fake gang life, The Boy Who Made Up His Story About Going To Heaven, and JT LeRoy.
Source 1, Source 2, Source 3
