Literary Hoaxes

If an unknown screenwriter submits a masterpiece to a movie agent, what are the chances that the agent will actually read the screenplay and recognize its value? Freelance writer Chuck Ross designed an experiment to find out. He slightly disguised the script of Casablanca (changing its title, the name of the author, and the names of some of the characters) and submitted it to 217 agencies. The majority of these returned it unread, while 33 recognized the script, but 38 claimed to have read it and rejected it, saying the script simply wasn't good enough. More…

The Diary of a Good Neighbor by Jane Somers received little attention, and only modest sales, when it was published in 1983. The novel told the story of a magazine editor who befriends a lonely old woman. But when a sequel appeared a year later, a surprise announcement accompanied its publication. The book's true author was the acclaimed writer Doris Lessing (who later won the Nobel Prize for Literature). Lessing explained that she had concealed her authorship in order to show how difficult it is for unknown authors to attract attention. Also, she wanted to play a prank on critics who insisted on pigeonholing her as one type of writer or another. More…

Norma Khouri's bestseller Honor Lost (published in Australia, Khouri's home, as Forbidden Love) told the story of a Jordanian 'honor killing.' In the book, a young woman named Dalia living in Jordan falls in love with a Christian man and is murdered for this transgression by her father in order to defend the 'honor' of the family. Khouri claimed the story was nonfiction, based on the life (and death) of a woman she met while growing up in Jordan. But the Sydney Morning Herald discovered that Khouri didn't grow up in Jordan. She actually grew up in a suburb of Chicago. And no person matching the Dalia character appears to have existed. The clear implication was that her book was fiction. The Australian publisher withdrew it from sale.

JT LeRoy was a transgendered, homosexual, drug-addicted, pathologically shy teenager who had been living on the streets, forced into a life of truck-stop prostitution by his mother. But through his writing, he seemed to have escaped that life. His first novel was a critical success, and more books followed. By the time he was in his mid-twenties, his stature as a literary star appeared to be secure. But this stature was shaken when New York Magazine published an article that asked a simple question: Was JT LeRoy a real person? More…

The story of how Herman Rosenblat first met his wife, Roma, was remarkable. Imprisoned as a child in the Buchenwald concentration camp, Rosenblat claimed that Roma, a Jewish girl disguised as a Christian who lived in the nearby town, used to throw apples over the fence for him. Twelve years later, the two met in Coney Island and realized where they had previously seen each other. They fell in love and got married. But as the story gained media attention, skeptics raised questions about it. Other Buchenwald survivors noted that civilians weren't allowed anywhere near the fence. Historian Kenneth Waltzer then discovered that Rosenblat's wife had lived over 200 miles away from the camp. More…