3.20.2007

a naked lie


My favorite author, David Sedaris, admitted to exaggerating on his book Naked.

"The events described in these stories are real," humorist David Sedaris wrote in the introductory note to Naked, his 1997 collection of nonfiction essays. The New York Times was convinced: When Naked hit the best-seller list, it categorized the book as nonfiction. The Library of Congress called it biography, and Sedaris assured several interviewers over the years that the book was essentially factual. "Everything in Naked was true," he told the webzine GettingIt in 1999. "I mean, I exaggerate. But all the situations were true."...
-The New Republic

I couldn't go on to read the rest because I would have to subscribe.

Does this turn a book nonfiction to fiction. does it make it less true if the events are true, but situations not so much or even stretched? I don't care what they say, he is still my favorite.

1 comment:

Katie said...

I say nonfiction because if you think about it, almost all ideas for books and movies are based on something factual whether it happened to you or not. When the events could not possibly happen, they're sci fi.