AustLit

'Examining hoax memoirs by James Frey (2003), Dave Pelzer (1995), and Kathy O'Beirne (2006), this paper illustrates how anxieties about the inability of representation to provide a direct access to truth are mitigated via an emotional connection with the text. While the degree of faking varies, each scandal reveals concerns about authenticity and the need to find-or feel-something that can be accepted as unquestionably 'true'. The mimicking performed by a fake unsettles the boundaries between fact and fiction to reveal a public investment in an undisturbed effect of the real, a willingness to accept a blurring of'truth' in the interests of the sensational experience of literature.' (Publication abstract)