The story too good to be true

Over at salon.com, Lev Raphael writes an interesting column on the Herman Rosenblat fabricated Holocaust memoir Angel at the Fence. (Publisher Berkley declined to publish the book.)

His opening statement: "Novelist and editor William Dean Howells famously told Edith Wharton that the problem with American audiences was that they always wanted 'a tragedy with a happy ending.' " He goes on to write that as the son of Holocaust survivors, he knew it couldn't be true - but goes on to wonder why Rosenblat didn't just write fiction. He suggests writing a dream sequence involving the made-up events.

Good question. I still don't know why someone would diminish his credibility by making up something so simple to check.

Comments

[eileen]

and now, it may be released as fiction after all!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/books/08arts-FALSEMEMOIRM_BRF.html

[Connie Ogle]

Thanks for posting this! I guess the publisher feels like it can still make some money on it but...would YOU read it?

[eileen]

yeah, you cant blame them for trying to make ... something out of a sow's ear, altho it seems now that it would be more tainted (i believe that will be the word of '09) than burris is by blago.