Literary Honesty

If people want to tell a story, why can't they just write fiction? If they want to tell their own story, it can still be worth reading, even if it doesn't entail hard-core suffering (see Susan Gilman's "Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress" or David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day."

This has always bothered me. It bothered me when Rigoberta Menchu did it and it bothered me when some friends defended her by accepting her horse$hit about her culturally relative sense of identity.

I promise you that if I ever compile an anthology of blog entries and add to it with other childhood stories, I won't make $hit up to go with it. Then again, I'd publish it anonymously and would be happy to pass it off as fiction.

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As usual, Nicholas Kristoff writes the truth.