The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies Ever Published as Non-Fiction
So you've got an idea for a novel. Big deal, right? Thousands of those are published every year and most collect dust on the shelves. How can you call attention to yours?
Hey, why not claim all the stuff in the book actually happened to you? Instead of a ridiculous product of your deranged imagination, it's an inspiring true story!
Be careful, though, because apparently that plan can blow up in your face.
#5.
A Million Little Pieces
The Book:
In 2003, author James Frey published a "memoir" about his life as a total unrepentant addict, alcoholic, criminal and all-around bad-ass motherfucker. So bad-ass, in fact, he has a tattoo on his forearm that says "FTBSITTTD," which allegedly stands for "Fuck The Bullshit, It's Time To Throw Down."
His book describes one fucked up incident after another. How he'd been arrested 11 times before he reached the age of 19. How he was investigated by the FBI for his massive drug-running empire but was never caught. How, drunk and high on crack, he nearly ran down a cop in Ohio. Then he took on said cop's backup, almost won and, instead, wound up in the slammer.
The Bullshit:
In reality, of course, Jimmy Frey never did any of those things. Oh, there's a microscopic grain of truth to some of it. He did not run down a cop, but he did blatantly park illegally near one, was busted for driving under the influence and having an open beer in the car with him, and spent about five whole hours in jail before a buddy ponied up a few hundred dollars in bail.
The cop he "almost ran down" did call for back up, but that was because he was a foot patrolman and didn't have a car to transport the reportedly "polite and cooperative" Mr. Frey to the Big House. You can guess how much truth there was in his claim to being a Tony Montana-esque drug kingpin.
Now, normally, this level of horseshit is reserved for the dumb fucker you meet in a bar who turns his routine traffic stop into the finale of Bonnie and Clyde. You know it's crap, but you play along because either A) The story is at least entertaining; B) The guy's so hammered you're bound to get into a "Oh yeah? YOU CALLIN' ME A LIAR, MOTHERFUCKER?" confrontation; or C) You just don't care enough to call the dude on his bullshit.
But what makes Mr. Frey's deceit so monumental is that he spun it into a best-selling novel and managed to con the famously gullible Oprah Winfrey. When Oprah slapped her "Book Club" sticker on this pile of bullshit wrapped in a hardcover and dustjacket, it spent weeks and weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.
The Crash:
The Smoking Gun found that not only were his stories of drug running and cop smooshing bullshit, but that he had inexplicably written himself into the tragic auto vs. locomotive death of three teens in his hometown of St. Joseph, Michigan.
Oprah, Valkyrie of wounded dignity that she was, brought Frey and his publisher back onto her show. She reduced Frey to a stammering six-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar and forced his publisher to admit that she never really got around to checking the veracity of Frey's claims 'cause, you know, he seemed so trustworthy. For an admitted drunk, junkie and criminal, that is.
#4.
Love and Consequences
The Book:
Our second entry in the "lame-ass white kid wants to be a stone-cold criminal" category is Love and Consequences penned under the nom de bullshit "Margaret B. Jones."
In this fauxmoir, "Jones" claims she is a half American Indian/half white foster kid growing up in the baddest parts of South Central Los Angeles, a world renowned war zone. She details her life with her foster mother, "Big Mom," her various foster brothers and sisters (many of whom die in violent and tragic ways), her experiences as a drug runner for the infamous Bloods gang at the age of 13 and cooking up some crack cocaine to pay the water bill at the age of 16.
The Bullshit:
"Jones" is actually Margaret Seltzer: an all white, upper-middle class girl who grew up in the oh-so-dangerous, predominantly white, San Fernando Valley suburb of Sherman Oaks. That's right kids, the killer drug running chick is actually a true-bred "Valley Girl."
How did Seltzer manage to get away with this crap before her own family sold her down the river? Through the totally convincing use of street slang, yo. For instance, she would spell words with a "k" instead of a "c". What, you didn't know gang folk did that? In her own words:
"... I want people to understand how deep-seated the hatred really is between CRIPs and Bloods. CRIPs celebrate C-days rather than B-days (birthdays) and Bloods smoke bigarettes not cigarettes. The hate is so deep that, as a Blood, you automatically change the spelling in words with a c in them."
That's... plausible. Right?
The Crash:
Poor Seltzer didn't get the chances that Frey did, such as scamming Oprah on national television. No, before her book tour got started Seltzer was ratted out... by her own sister. So that probably made for an awkward Thanksgiving.
Seltzer got the idea, she claimed, by hanging out very briefly at Grant High School in a less affluent area of the San Fernando Valley. These were the stories, she claimed, of friends and acquaintances she had made during that time and she felt their stories should be heard.
The Grant High School Marching Bloods.
As to why she chose to tell those stories as though they had happened to her, we're not entirely certain. Perhaps she thought it might give her some of the "street cred" that is so desperately necessary when attempting to "represent" to the "homies" at Trader Joe's.
#3.
The Third Eye
The Book:
In 1956, a publishing sensation swept through England. Finally, finally, someone had written a true-life story about being a Tibetan lama... and there was magic and ninjas and stuff in it! Just what the country ordered!
The Third Eye, authored by a man with the improbably hilarious name of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, told the true story of a young Tibetan boy (the author) who became a lama (religious teacher) at a young age. Over the next few years he flies, meets yetis and has a hole drilled in his forehead to open his "third eye." Why does he do this last thing? Because the Dalai Lama has foreseen the Chinese re-taking of Tibet, and Lobsang's third eye will give him super-powers for reading minds.
Having lived through far too much awesomeness for one book, he continued it in sequels in which Lobsang flies airplanes for the Chinese in WW II, gets captured and spends time in a P.O.W. camp, survives Hiroshima, goes to England, is tortured, escapes his torturers in a luxury car and finally...
The Bullshit:
... he dies. Yes, he wrote his own death into his autobiography. While he was walking around alive.
To be fair to his publishers, he didn't work the whole "And then I totally died!" part in until his third book. And it was probably a James Frey situation, where the guy really was a lama but had to spice things up a little. Or a lot.
The Crash:
The famous Tibetologist and adventurer Heinrich Harrer (played by dream-boat Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet) became suspicious of Lobsang and hired a private detective to track the elusive lama down. And that detective did find his man... namely, Cyril Henry Hoskins, an Irish plumber's son who knew no Tibetan, had never been to Tibet and in fact did not even have a passport.
When all the academics cried in unison "Shenanigans, sir!" Cyril waved it off and told them the real story: That he was Tuesday Lobsang Rampa's spirit, and he was inhabiting the body of Cyril Hoskins. Undeterred, the man went on to write 24 books total, including tale about his real trip to Venus in a spaceship.
They forgot "The Bible", the "Qur'an", "Book of Mormon". etc etc
ReplyI remember when being an atheist was cool. Now its just troll food
"And really, why would they lie? Hey, did we mention that in addition to all of the book sales, NINE films have been made based on the story? And why not? It's totally true, you guys."
ReplyUhhhh, if it's being posed as a true story then no royalties would need be paid making that completely academic. It's like saying that Abe Lincoln is a fictional character because a lot of movies have been made about him.
"She walks from Belgium to the Ukraine"
ReplyUkraine. It's just Ukraine.
There secretly was no armies fighting the axis powers it was all me. And Hiroshima wasn't a bomb it was the wreckage from my hand to hand combat. Should I write a book
ReplyDude I swear this is totally tru alright so I was at this party in Nagasaki and I exploded. Bur then dude I totally haunted this house in Louisiana this one time tru story.
I would buy that
I am surprised Papillon wasn't mentioned in this list.
ReplyDoesn't Rampa look a little like Robert Englund, the guy that played Freddy Krueger?
ReplyThanks man. I knew i saw him before and it was killing me
HURR DURR BIBLE DURR
ReplyExcept that the Bible is compiled from oral stories, and took hundreds of years to eventually be compiled into what is known as the Bible today. Somebody did not just sit down and say "Jesus and magic, guys. Seriously, this shit's awesome." You really ought to know what you're talking about before your face hole spasms into what you may call talking, and what other people call asinine stupidity.
I was considering writing a fantastic tale of voyage on the open seas while fighting pirates and defending ports from their oppressive governments. Now I understand that I must write it as a "true story" for it to sale. Thank You Cracked!
Replyi don't care if it's a lie, a million little pieces is a f*****g fantastic book.
Replyhow is the bible/koran not on here…?
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesTo be fair, the Koran is a really good collection of poems.
or any religious book for that matter. Torah, et cetera
not cool, dude
Is it one of the rules of the Internet that the comment section of any story has to turn into a discussion of atheism? I'm not religious (agnostic at best), and yeah, this topic sort of lends itself to atheist comments, but a couple days ago I was reading a story on whether there is a housing bubble in Canada, and a surprising amount of the comments were some version of "I'm a smug atheist." Is this the atheist equivalent of ringing random people's doorbells?
WHAT? Did you just make fun of religion, ON THE INTERNET?
Edgy troll is edgy.
Amityville isn't really? NOOOOOOOO :(
ReplyI'm one of those people who doesn't believe in ghosts but WANTS to and gets freaked out by ghost stories. I always thought they left all they crap and just moved the hell out of the house which seems like that would be cause for some "hmmm maybe they really were freaked out". Guess they were just betting on the fact that they'd get hella money from movies and books lol
DAMNIT just read they got a mover to get all their crap the next day and the mover said he didn't experience anything. LAAAAAAAME
And the people who moved into the house later were not bothered by anything. Then the movie came out, and they had to deal with idiots trespassing on their property and filching the rocks in their garden for souvenirs.
...And yet in spite of all his hilariously transparent lies,T.Lobsang Rampa is still infinately more believable than Carlos Castaneda
ReplyYou can add Kony now.
ReplyForbidden Love anyone?
ReplyI'll assume it's already been said but damn-it I'm going to say it anyway.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWhen it comes to lies published as non-fiction you can't go past the success, especially when considering the lack of believability, of ALL religious texts. Bible = fiction, Qua-ran = fiction, etc.
Wow, self righteous much? "ALL RELIGIOUS TEXTS ARE FAKE.' Did YOU alone discover this? After all your copious research and study of evidence, right? Are you the leader of the entire world in all its collective knowledge? Pretty sure, your beliefs aside, you don't hold the authority, knowledge or credibility to declare that ALL RELIGIOUS TEXTS ARE FAKE, regardless of whether they are or not.
Why don't you just go ahead and tell us that you're Jesus, or the all powerful omniscient Zeus or something?
Gotta love people acting like their views and opinions are the ultimate absolute truth of the world.
He can't tell you he's Jesus or Zeus, because there's no such thing; that's kinda the point.
Anyone who firmly thinks that their belief is correct and everyone else is wrong and then goes around saying that is a a*****e, i don't care what side you are on, does it hurt you in any way if everyone abides by their belief doesn't hurt anyone and otherwise goes about living their life? no? shut up then and lets make actually interesting comments.
why cnt these writers just say its a normal story and stop claiming it to be true? the angel by the fence seemed like a good story even if it was lies lol
Replybecause it would sell more if they said it was based on, or itself is a true story...?
go ask alice
ReplyAlthough, technically, there's a disclaimer inside the cover saying it's a work of fiction, even though it's marketed as a true story.
I don't think that disclaimer was there in the earlier copies.
I think the common element in most all of these is that these people all write about things the way people want to believe they are. I.e, people, especially the sort who read s**t from 'opera's book club', like to believe alcoholics/drug addicts are all dangerous, scary criminals who will take any opportunity to f**k your s**t up and are all horribly violent psychopaths? They're just begging for someone like frey to come out with a book confirming all their deepest fears about life on the edge as a drug addict/violent manic/organized crime officiando (they're the same things in a lot of said people's minds).
ReplyThey don't know much about gangs? Finally, a book detailing the insane fast and furious lifestyle of a real live gang member! And it's just as terrible and hazardous as they imagined! Bonus!
Hey, there's never been a book about the hidden world of the Tibetan Lama? Well, now there is. And surprise surprise, it's just how everyone liked to imagine life as a mysterious, powerful, mystical Tibetan Lama might be. I wonder if that has anything to do with people's willingness to accept these bullshit, unverified claims from people they've never heard of as reality?
People believe what they want to, and in cases such as these god damn it do they want to believe. They'd much, much rather have the truth be terrible, and have people really being hurt, and have the world really be out to get them, rather than accept the fact that maybe they're really ignorant and/or prejudiced, or that they really do just have no god damn clue what they're talking about, or that maybe life isn't actually that crazy and exciting behind the scenes. Of course that's part of it too. A small part of people reading s**t like that wants to believe someone's life really is that crazy and action packed and full of strife. It confirms in their mind life really can be like an action movie, and that it can be crazy and exciting and not the same mundane thing they're experiencing every day...it's like a movie come to life. And it's like, totally real you guys!
That's basically the exact same reason doomsday scenarios catch so much wind. Or why people are so fascinated with truly twisted stories of crazed murderers or gang wars or whatever. People hate the idea that their day to day, mundane, boring lives are all there is to the world. They crave excitement. They want to believe real life is like the movies. They want to think people are out there living action movies every day.
As a matter of fact, I believe it was in an article by soren bowie, in which he was talking about why older adults hate teenagers, where he said that one of the real reasons adults hate teenagers, and that they want to believe teenagers are really out there being crazy and having sex like mad and having 'rainbow parties' and shoving alcohol up their asses and whatnot, is because they're jealous, and they wish they were the ones out there doing crazy shit. Their lives are mundane and boring, and it excites them to almost live vicariously through kids. These people can sit and imagine all the excitement and adventure and novelty of these stories they're hearing, and just for a while they can believe their world isn't really the same boring, s****y thing as usual, and that also gives them hope that maybe their lives could be as fast and crazy as in the movies and stories...and heaven knows it would be awesome if life was really that exciting. I sure as hell don't blame them for wishing life wasn't so f*****g boring and mundane most times.
So yeah, that's why people are so easily fooled into believing all this sort of shit. Or at least I'm pretty sure that's all why.
Totally! Opera book clubs are so annoying. I'm sure Figaro would agree.
WAY TOO LONG. Seriously......not gonna read that lol
The cover image of the wanna-be Tibetan looks exactly like Mike from Breaking Bad.
ReplyI was thinking the same thing
The C-B thing for gangs is true. As a Crip, you'd never spell a word ending in CK as it is supposed to be spelled. CK stands for Crip Killer, you'd spell it CC. You don't refer to a Blood as a Blood, he's a Slob just like a Crip is a Crab to a Blood gang member. They are serious insults and you will get fucced up behind them. You do celebrate C-days as a Crip and whenever possible you avoid uttering the B sound, when you write the number 5 you put a slash or a pitch fork pointed upwards through it or wrote it backwards(still with slash or fork) as Bloods are represented by 5 pointed stars and Crips by 6 pointed stars. There are whole gang alphabets and numeric systems that denote affiliation with dots and circles to show subsets i.e. Rolling 60's Crips, Grape Street Crips, Hoover Crips, etc. You wear to certain sides, back in the '90's it used to be that if you were a Crip you wore to the right, your rag was in your right pocket, your hat was turned with the bill to your right, you wore British Knights or K-Swiss tennis shoes (Kill a Slob When I See a Slob). I've never read the book mentioned in this article so I don't know what type of info she's written but it's probably not as off-base as it may sound. The hatred runs deep, so deep that if you and your brother are in opposing gangs and you visit your mother for the holidays, you will not be in the same room with each other, you will not eat at the same table and acknowledging each others presence could result in a fight or worse. You cross paths with someone from an opposing set, you fight or shoot no matter when or where. I'm glad it's not as bad as it used to be.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI don't think they were saying that the hatred between the two gangs is made up. Just that it was ridiculous that switching a few letters around was enough to make ANYONE think that a Valley Girl was a South Central gangbanger.
I noticed Im wearing K Swiss shoes while reading this...can a 40 y/o white guy be a CRIP? You guys have a dental plan? I look better in blue but hey I'm all about benefits...
Isn't the whole moral of this story supposed to be NOT just believing people when they say "hey, I know all about this stuff. Just trust me on this.". Maybe you know what you're talking about. On the other hand, I've known some people who go to great lengths to sound like they know what they're talking about. I mean, back in school there were these two guys everyone knew because they were the most ridiculous compulsive liars one could ever meet. They'd lie about s**t there wasn't even any reason to lie about. The one claimed he was in the 'chinese mafia'/a...wait for it...chinese commander at the age of 7, and that his dad used to be a drug kingpin. He'd tell us all about how every gang allegedly operated, and no one knew enough to call him on it.
So I apologize if you really know what you're talking about, but there are way too many kids out there pretending they're badass gang experts to take anyone at their word anymore. They're a dime a dozen, and they love places exactly like this as their hangout to try to pass off their 'expertise'.
That's...extremely retarded.