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Has anyone here read The Salt Path or seen the film?
It seems that the book, despite supposedly being non-fiction, is in significant respects fiction. In fact, it looks as if the author and her husband may have conned the publisher and the public, not to mention the film makers. According to The Observer, the author and her husband, who go by names that aren't their real ones, were not made homeless in the way described in the book, the author is an embezzler and her husband doesn't suffer from the terminal illness claimed in the book.
Blurb from second video below:
"The Salt Path rocked the world in 2018 when couple Raynor and Moth Winn told their real-life tale overcoming terminal illness and homelessness by taking a 630 mile walk around the UK. Now an incredible article in the Observer claims that the main elements of Raynor and Moth Winn’s story, including their names, are fabrications. What is the truth and what do publishers or film studios do in cases like this?"
Well, it will make a fascinating Netflix documentary. This is almost of Captain Tom proportions, but strange how the publishers, executives, producers etc didn't find out previously.
Downing Street Cat wrote: Well, it will make a fascinating Netflix documentary. This is almost of Captain Tom proportions, but strange how the publishers, executives, producers etc didn't find out previously.
Or perhaps not strange at all DSC given the money this thing was generating?
Good story. Bottom line. It would only be strange if publishers were interested in truth rather than enrichment.
There is a raft of "non fiction" accounts out there that are partly, at the least, fiction; including every autobiography ever written...
Autobiography relies on the touching notion that people understand themselves and how others react to them...
Wyot wrote: Downing Street Cat wrote: Well, it will make a fascinating Netflix documentary. This is almost of Captain Tom proportions, but strange how the publishers, executives, producers etc didn't find out previously.
Or perhaps not strange at all DSC given the money this thing was generating?
Good story. Bottom line. It would only be strange if publishers were interested in truth rather than enrichment.
There is a raft of "non fiction" accounts out there that are partly, at the least, fiction; including every autobiography ever written...
Autobiography relies on the touching notion that people understand themselves and how others react to them... Indeed Wyot. And as JK would say 'a good story is all'.
I saw the film and enjoyed it very much. Both Gillian Anderson and Jason Issaccs gave very moving performances. It was great to see a couple that support each other. Few major films are believable these days, it seems to be all this super hero and fantasy rubbish.
Story today in the Mail questioning whether this couple were even homeless.
I wonder what the legalities are here?
Could this be considered financial fraud? Could readers have a case against not just the publisher but the couple themselves if fiction is falsely presented as truth?
In the 90s in Australia a bizarre case waged in the media over a writer called Helen Demidenko who wrote a supposedly truthful book called The Hand that Signed the Paper about a Ukrainian family that co-operated with the Nazis during WW2. She claimed Ukrainian ancestry.
Turns out she is the daughter of English immigrants, her name was fake and the book was just a hoax but it received numerous literary awards.
But she went on to become a lawyer and now contributes to numerous Oz newspapers.
The threshold where any law could be applied is interesting.
We now of course have AI which is not "interested" in truth - just what the majority of information says on the net. And politicians - Trump being the worst by far - openly uninterested in truth and in love with lying and manipulation. With millions seemingly in love with this approach too.
Any law that only applied to writers would seem very restricted...
hedda wrote: Story today in the Mail questioning whether this couple were even homeless.
I wonder what the legalities are here?
Could this be considered financial fraud? Could readers have a case against not just the publisher but the couple themselves if fiction is falsely presented as truth?
In the 90s in Australia a bizarre case waged in the media over a writer called Helen Demidenko who wrote a supposedly truthful book called The Hand that Signed the Paper about a Ukrainian family that co-operated with the Nazis during WW2. She claimed Ukrainian ancestry.
Turns out she is the daughter of English immigrants, her name was fake and the book was just a hoax but it received numerous literary awards.
But she went on to become a lawyer and now contributes to numerous Oz newspapers.
Hitler's Diaries comes to mind. I am amazed how many took the bait on that one.
That's interesting, robbiex. I agree about the rubbish that seems so popular these days. I wonder if it's designed to cater to people who live in video-gaming world. If The Salt Path is a good film, it's a great pity the story behind it now appears to have major holes.
What an astounding story about Helen Demidenko, hedda. You'd think her credibility would be completely shot after writing a hoax book. I wonder if she's any more honest now that she's a lawyer.
Regarding the legalities of The Salt Path situation, the latest episode of the BBC programme The Media Show included an interview about this controversy with Heloise Wood, deputy news editor at The Bookseller. She said that, legally speaking, the responsibility for the accuracy of a non-fiction book lies with the author.
I wonder if more falsehoods will emerge. For example, did they really walk 600+ miles? I seem to remember back in the 1980s or 1990s there was a woman (can't remember her name, young and blond) who claimed to have walked the length of Africa. It turned out that she'd used transport for much of the journey.
I find con artists fascinating. Their ability to turn lies into truth and make people believe what they want them to is intriguing.
Jo wrote:
What an astounding story about Helen Demidenko, hedda. You'd think her credibility would be completely shot after writing a hoax book. I wonder if she's any more honest now that she's a lawyer.
Now Helen Dale I think she passed law with honours at Oxford and is regularly interviewed on GB News. Contributes occasionally to publications that originally called her out on the hoax.
Another one raging with controversy still in Oz is Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe who claims Aboriginal heritage although he looks quite white and his ancestors can be traced back to Cornwall.
He claims Aboriginals where much more than hunter gatherers and built villages and traded and so on but no other historian support such claims. Academics have slammed the book.
That's incredible. Sounds like another case of aboriginals coming off worse.
From Helen Dale's Wikipedia page:
While studying English literature at the University of Queensland...
... Dale was briefly a columnist with the Brisbane daily newspaper The Courier-Mail. She was dismissed for accusations of plagiarism after repeating jokes originally from the 'Evil Overlord List' in one of her columns and passing them off as her own.[10][11] ...
After working as a secondary teacher for several years in Australia and the UK, Dale returned to the University of Queensland in 2002 to study law. Graduating with a first class honours degree in law in 2005,[citation needed]she commenced work as a judge's associate for Peter Dutney, a justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland.[15] ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Dale
It sounds as if she's a habitual liar. Secondary school teacher? Oxford? Queensland? First class degree? Judge's associate? Wonder if she even has a law degree.
The author of The Salt Path and its sequels (and another one is apparently in the pipeline) has put out a statement on her website: www.raynorwinn.co.uk/
First video below: after 14 mins, there's an interview with Professor David Wilson on this controversy. (First 14 minutes is about his views on the Australian mushroom poisoning case.)
According to the Observer article, Gangani Publishing, which was organising the raffle, was Sally and Tim Walker’s own company and the “prize” was their own house (which was about to be repossessed to pay their debts).
The Gangani Publishing snapshot shows a couple of books for sale, both by someone called Izzy Wyn-Thomas. Nothing wrong with writing under a pseudonym, but I do wonder how many names the author and her husband have.
About her name, she says this in the rebuttal statement on her website:
"Winn is my maiden name and like most women who have married I've used both my maiden name, Winn, and married name, Walker"
Apart from the fact that it's just not true that most married women also use their maiden name, if she was going by Izzy Wyn-Thomas in a previous attempt to sell a book, I wonder if it's true that her maiden name was Winn, or even if her supposed married name is her real name. Could Winn/Wyn be a play on "win", a private joke? She and her husband must have made a fortune with her books and the film. (And how did they make a living before that? I'd be curious to know.) Conman Mark Acklom told one of his victims, Carolyn Woods, that his name was Mark CONway.
It looks as if Penguin are standing by the author. According to someone who worked in book publishing for over 30 years, including for Penguin, money now trumps facts in non-fiction book publishing.
"Penguin said release date of On Winter Hill would be changed in order to ‘support the author’ after allegations that Raynor Winn lied in her bestselling memoir"
Another complication, also present in the Bookseller’s survey of professionals, is publishers’ deference to authors, particularly those in whom they have most significantly invested. In my experience, publishers will go to great lengths to avoid difficult conversations with authors.
I witnessed this first hand at Penguin Random House a couple of years ago when Wifedom, prize-winning author Anna Funder’s acclaimed biography of Eileen Orwell, faced public criticism from experts over historical inaccuracies.
Although the publisher and the author eventually agreed to correct these in future editions, the in-house concerns I observed were first and foremost to defend and protect the reputation of a valuable author. In such an atmosphere, to raise any qualms about the authenticity of an author of the hugely money-spinning status of Raynor Winn would require some chutzpah.
Green Man wrote: hedda wrote: Story today in the Mail questioning whether this couple were even homeless.
I wonder what the legalities are here?
Could this be considered financial fraud? Could readers have a case against not just the publisher but the couple themselves if fiction is falsely presented as truth?
In the 90s in Australia a bizarre case waged in the media over a writer called Helen Demidenko who wrote a supposedly truthful book called The Hand that Signed the Paper about a Ukrainian family that co-operated with the Nazis during WW2. She claimed Ukrainian ancestry.
Turns out she is the daughter of English immigrants, her name was fake and the book was just a hoax but it received numerous literary awards.
But she went on to become a lawyer and now contributes to numerous Oz newspapers.
Hitler's Diaries comes to mind. I am amazed how many took the bait on that one.
I thought the Hitler Diaries hoax was really amazingly good fun.
German TV made a great series about the affair at the time. The hoaxer was quite a fascinating character having produced endless Nazi fake memorabilia. I think at the time he owned Hermann Göring's yacht.
hedda wrote: Green Man wrote: hedda wrote: Story today in the Mail questioning whether this couple were even homeless.
I wonder what the legalities are here?
Could this be considered financial fraud? Could readers have a case against not just the publisher but the couple themselves if fiction is falsely presented as truth?
In the 90s in Australia a bizarre case waged in the media over a writer called Helen Demidenko who wrote a supposedly truthful book called The Hand that Signed the Paper about a Ukrainian family that co-operated with the Nazis during WW2. She claimed Ukrainian ancestry.
Turns out she is the daughter of English immigrants, her name was fake and the book was just a hoax but it received numerous literary awards.
But she went on to become a lawyer and now contributes to numerous Oz newspapers.
I agree, the hoaxer of the diaries also got conned by another Nazi collector.
Hitler's Diaries comes to mind. I am amazed how many took the bait on that one.
I thought the Hitler Diaries hoax was really amazingly good fun.
German TV made a great series about the affair at the time. The hoaxer was quite a fascinating character having produced endless Nazi fake memorabilia. I think at the time he owned Hermann Göring's yacht.
...But in October 2021, Bill says, Moth surprised him with an announcement. “He put his head in his hands and he said: ‘We went to the hospital this week and I’ve been told not to plan beyond Christmas.’” Bill was horrified. “I just went: ‘Oh my God!’ and gave him a big hug.”
Bill’s friend Richard, who asked us not to use his surname, was present for the conversation. “It was extraordinarily emotional,” he recalls. “Bill was close to tears. Moth also told him he thought he would already be dead if he hadn’t been living on Haye farm.”
... When Winn’s third book, Landlines, was published in September 2022, Bill read how, in the winter of 2021, soon after Moth had finished another long walk, a neurologist told him his brain scan was “normal”, implying that the walk had drastically improved the symptoms of his condition. ...
Raynor and Moth Winn aka Sally and Timothy Walker (supposedly). It's not unusual for an author to use a pseudonym, but why would her husband do so?
Jason Isaacs seems star-struck by the husband, of whom there is a brief clip in this video. He definitely seems to be a charmer.
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