Does the true identity of a writer really matter? Authors who fabricated literary personas share how their fantasies became nightmares
On the first day of this year’s Jaipur literary festival, the American novelist AJ Finn, real name Dan Mallory, was interviewed on stage. He talked about enjoying the success of The Woman in the Window, the thriller he wrote in one year, in one draft, which made him a multimillionaire. He talked about his diagnosis with bipolar II disorder, and the parallel between women’s struggle to be taken seriously and that experienced by people with mental health problems. He also mentioned some of the drawbacks of success. “I am dealing with a particularly unpleasant journalist in the US,” he told news18.com after the event. “This particular journalist, and there have been a few others, hears that I or someone else has a mental health issue, and is like: ‘Oh! I am going to find out what is wrong with you, and rummage through your past and see what you did.’ It’s a little concerning, especially because you don’t remember what you did when you weren’t acting like yourself.”
Six days later, on 30 January, Mallory was able to recall lying to his friends and colleagues for many years about having cancer. “I felt intensely ashamed of my psychological struggles,” he explained in a statement sent to the New Yorker. “I was utterly terrified of what people would think of me if they knew.” Five days later the New Yorker published a profile of Mallory, which alleged or implied that he had also lied, among other things, about having a doctorate from Oxford; his mother dying; his brother taking his own life; and about discovering JK Rowling as a crime writer.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GKQTjW
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