Liar, liar, pants on fire

I read a novel recently, and for the life of me, couldn't decide for a while whether I liked it or not. It was a most peculiar experience.

I didn't outright hate it, but I certainly didn't love it, either.

Truth is, I was reading it mainly out of curiosity.

I flip-flopped back and forth for a while: first I disliked it, then it was interesting, but no, I detested it. The people were cardboard. I didn't care about them, I just wondered how the author was going to manipulate their lives.

And so it went, for the entire 512 pages, believe it or not.

It was a novel written by a guy who'd previously written two allegedly non-fiction books: alleged memoirs about allegedly being an alleged tough guy with a drug problem who spent an alleged number of months in jail, and allegedly had root canal surgery without alleged painkillers.

Allegedly.

And had a friend who allegedly killed herself, but maybe in real life she didn't, or maybe she did, but it happened differently than how he wrote it.

The whole thing then blew apart, finally, on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Oprah was tremendously put out about the whole thing, and took it as a personal affront. Because after all, he'd sat there and lied to her and to her vast audience.

So I don't blame her.

Even before all this hoo-ha, the guy was profiled in a serious writing magazine, given the cover, I believe. I rolled my eyes when I read it — never a good sign — because he seemed like such a poseur even then. Someone trying to be hip and edgy and "dangerous." (You know, kind of like when Vanilla Ice talked about growing up in the 'hood, and it turned out he'd exaggerated to build street cred.) Despite lying to the public, lying in print, and being nationally disgraced, the guy got a new publishing contract! I read that his advance was $1.5 million.

One and a half a million dollars!

When it came out, critics were split.

Some said he'd redeemed himself. Some said it was garbage.

I admit, I was curious. And the only way to judge, I thought, was to read it for myself and make up my own mind.

But I didn't want to support this guy, or give him any of my money. So I borrowed the book from the library…and then went through a roller coaster ride of emotion while reading it. I'd recently read a profile of the guy in a national magazine, and he came across as an arrested adolescent, a real jerk. (For example, he's 38, and still makes prank calls.)

When I read the book, it was hard to separate the author from the work. I kept wondering if maybe I'd like it more if I didn't know anything about him, if he didn't have this horrible history.

I could see what he was trying to do structurally: present an overview of a city by interspersing its history with continuing stories of a variety of stock characters. It was as if he were attempting to do what John Dos Passos did with his U.S. A. Trilogy - and did so much better—when he wove his collage of fiction, newspaper clippings, history and biography.

But the writing seemed gimmicky. The more I read, the more I could predict how the chapters were going to end. And the lack of punctuation began to drive me nuts.

When I finished the book, I felt hollow. I didn't feel that sense of satisfaction or exhilaration at the conclusion of an exciting novel.

And no, I'm not mentioning the guy's name, nor the titles of his books. And I'm going to tell the page designer not to run any of the covers to accompany this column, because I don't want to give him one ounce of promotion.

I felt so betrayed by what this man had done, that he felt he could hookwink readers.

It's interesting, though. I read another novel last year, which also combines fact and fiction. I've highly recommended it and even bought copies for friends. "What is the What" by Dave Eggers is based on the reallife story of Valentino Achak Deng, a Lost Boy of the Sudan.

Eggers gets the voice exactly right, and has written a compelling book.

But I must confess, at the end, I felt slightly off-balance. If this book is a fictionalized telling of someone's real-life story, what was made up and what was real? That scene in the refuge camp that made me cry - did that really happen, or was the writer manipulating my feelings?

Yet, the book is presented as a novel. It doesn't present itself as something it's not.

Then recently, I had an interesting e-mail exchange with a friend who writes monthly book reviews, which she sends out to her e-mail list. They're one-paragraph capsule reviews, with a star rating system.

One of the books she reviewed was the new book by David Sedaris: "When You Are Engulfed in Flames." She raved about it.

I'd read that Sedaris has said that his books are "real-ish" and are "97 percent true." So I wrote my friend and asked if it bothered her that Sedaris had admitted that he's made up a bunch of things in his books.

It disturbed me, because I thought his books were presented as fact, as memoirs, not pure humor.

My friend wrote back that the fact that he "makes some things up or exaggerates for the sake of humor does not bother me in the least. He writes about his life. Nobody's life can be so consistently funny that telling about it will afford them a living wage. I don't know any humorist who doesn't take advantage of creative license to ramp up the laugh-meter."

Her response surprised me. But then, I reasoned, I don't believe everything standup comics say about their husband/wife/ girlfriend/boyfriend/parents/friends/dog is true. And I don't believe reality TV is necessarily an accurate portrayal of reality. I know it's scripted.

Exaggeration's fine, if we all know you're exaggerating. But if a book's presented as being true, I expect it to be true.

The online articles about Sedaris are interesting, but what's especially telling are the responses from readers. The vast majority, from what I could tell, seemed to say: "So what? Who cares if what he says is true or not?"

And that bothers me even more.

What especially bothered me were the ones who said, "Everyone lies. Why should you expect otherwise?" It's like the guy who says, "Everyone cheats, everyone does it," and it's a justification for him to go out and cheat. Because he does it, he believes everyone else does.

I don't know.

These issues are still tumbling around in my brain, and I haven't fully resolved them yet.

Maybe I'm feeling particularly cranky because for the past eight years we've been lied to so often and so consistently by our government. It's not as if politicians haven't lied to us before. But these blatant lies, with their dire, long-ranging consequences, are especially egregious.

And yet, these books, these misrepresentations, bother me too.

Maybe I'm naive. Maybe my expectations are too high. Maybe I'm too idealistic.

I will say this: every time the Dramatics come on the radio singing "Whatcha See is Whatcha Get," I'll crank it up.

Because I do believe, as they sing, that real is still the best thing yet.