Misery Lit | 2: Ethics of Exploitation

In the conclusion of our series on Misery Lit and Literary Fraud, we discuss two more famous cases of fabricated memoir and what our conspicuous consumption of trauma porn tells us about ourselves and the cultural narratives around female suffering.  Contact Us:  [email protected] Follow Us:  ILL REPUTE! links: http://linktr.ee/illreputepod Sovereing Syre’s links: http://linktr.ee/sovereignsyre Ela Darling’s links: http://zez.am/eladarling Merch:  http://importantadult.com Support Us:  http://patreon.com/illrepute Sources https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/khouri-admits-lies-20040818-gdjkm0.html https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/bestsellers-lies-exposed-20040724-gdjerm.html https://www.theage.com.au/national/khouri-the-troubled-life-of-a-fake-20040731-gdyd40.html https://australia-explained.com.au/mavericks/helen-demidenkos-hand-that-signed-the-paper https://www.bu.edu/bostonia/summer09/hoax/ https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/from-the-archives-1995-writer-demidenko-revealed-to-be-helen-darville-20200813-p55ldc.html https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n22/peter-craven/diary https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/14718/ https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/09/books/the-unmasking-of-jt-leroy-in-public-hes-a-she.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/health/18well.html https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/helen-forrester-99jsdx093kk https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jun/15/childrensservices.biography http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6563529.stm https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/garden/28jones.html Metdepenningen, Marc.Misha Defonseca’s Confessions, Le Soir. Feb 29, 2008. Accessed March 12, 2024 via Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20080302203827/http://www.lesoir.be/channels/cinema/exclusif-2008-02-28-580849.shtml Bury, Liz. Tugging at Heart Strongs. Bookseller.com 2/22/2007. Accessed March 7, 2024 via Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20080804101600/http://www.thebookseller.com/in-depth/feature/34722-tugging-at-heart-strings.html https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/bestsellers-lies-exposed-20040724-gdjerm.html https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/literary-hoaxes-and-the-ethics-of-authorship https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/magazine/dysfunction-for-dollars.html Lomax, John Nova. Coal Miner Mother of a Mess. Houston Press. Aug 25, 2005.  https://www.houstonpress.com/music/coal-miner-mother-of-a-mess-6548530