memoirs

Hell of a good movie.

And yes -- if you don't know the person you're reading about why on earth would it matter if what they were saying was true or not?  Are people worried about looking stupid if they connect?  Sheesh.  It's still written by a real person.  

Although, on that -- a couple of years ago here a woman by the name of Helen Demidenko wrote a book called The Hand That Signed The Paper, the story of her Ukrainian father and uncle who, after persecution by Jews under Stalin became members of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen. Although the book appeared anti-Semitic, she claimed that because it was a true perspective as told to her by her family members it was as valid as the Jewish view. It took out the Vogel Prize, which is the richest prize for an unpublished manuscript in Australia.  

The trouble was threefold;  (a) The book is rubbish, poorly written and highly cliched;  (b) There are several examples of blatant plagiarism, sometimes whole pages; and (c) her real name is Helen Darville, she's well and truly of English descent and all her family is Australian.  The board of the prize were roundly criticised, not so much for falling for a "hoax" (although she'd never really kept her identity a secret, the board had just assumed and not bothered to check), but for awarding a prize based clearly on political reasons rather than literary merit.  

I guess the moral is, if you're going to lie do it in an entertaining fashion so that when you're found out people will feel a little less like they've been taken for a ride.