Blog Post #5

For a book to be considered non-fiction, it has to be totally and completely 100% true. That is what the whole point of a non-fiction is- a true story. Then there's the other side to the story where non-fiction could still be considered true even if it's not 100% accurate and truthful. Its similar to posing this question: If a person most always tells the truth, and the person only tells one important lie, does that make the person worthy of trust and the title of being honest? Most people would answer no- but that may only be done out of fear because they, themselves, do just that- tell mostly the truth, and a lie or two in between, and they too fear not being considered honest. So if we cannot expect 100% truthfulness and honesty from one of our peers, and ourselves, then why should we expect an author, who is also human, to feel the need to tell 100% of the truth 24 hours of each day, 7 days a week? I think its a good idea to approach a memoir with the mindset of: dishonest until proven honest. That way, when you finish the memoir and realize that most of the words in there were fake and made up, you won't be all that surprised.
With Fray, I think readers were more disappointed than anything. The reader picked up the book and read the title thinking that they would be reading an honest book about a person's exciting life. What the reader actually got was a book of mostly-lies. I too would be disappointed and frustrated.
Everybody labels everything because humans judge. You may try to not to judge others and certain objects- like books- but that's pretty much impossible. You yourself judged if you should become friends with a certain person, judged who you should sit next to, and judged which blogs to read.
All of this is inevitable- lying, judging, and labeling.