Misery Memoirs Love Company

In today's morning blog reading Grumpy Old Bookman had some interesting info on WanderingScribe a woman who claims to have been living in her car all the while blogging about her homeless life and her quest to get a book deal. WanderingScribe has now received said book deal from Harper Collins UK. However even though Miss Anya Peters (WanderingScribe's nom de plume) is a self proclaimed writer, Harper Collins has decided to have famed ghostwriter Andrew Crofts step in and help. I took a looky-loo at the WanderingScribe site and boy do she have a tendency to ramble and her writing content is pure drivel.
Quote: "I would rather sleep in my car through every winter there is, than have anyone know how deep the absence of love is."
How very bohemian of you.
Not to mention I detect an odor of James Frey Bullshit in the air. Enter what is now referred to as The Misery Memoir. Basically the idea is write about your miserable life, and a big publisher gives you money, and the publisher markets your book like crazy, and people read your book, and if your really lucky Oprah will pick your book for her book club and then you'll make millions! And if they find out you're lying Oprah will publicly flog you. (She will also attempt to publicly flog your publisher but that won't go nearly as well.)
Oddly enough after the Oprah incident part deux, the market was flooded with memoirs. Notably the two who are my favorites are the ones who were established long before the Frey incident. David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs have published a handful of books each and I find that their dry, sardonic presentation lends itself to the memoir as feeling more truthful. Information is merely presented for the reader to take as they will. They see the humor and irony in their crazy lives as opposed to Frey and Peters who take a "poor me" approach.
So is Anya Peters, Wandering Scribe the real deal? This remains to be seen. There is a lot of speculation that she's not, but proving this is difficult since we are not privy to her real name. But it is good that folks like the Wanderingego are looking to watchdog this before publication, and before millions of readers and Oprah are once again duped. (Seriously, Oprah has made it clear she does not like being duped.) My take is I don't think it's fair that someone gets to tell huge lies and then is rewarded for it. And I think publishers need to be more accountable for the accuracy of the books they publish. This fakery has always happened but has become far more commonplace in the last few years. Again it raises the question what is fiction, what is memoir, what is nonfiction, where is the line, and who decides? Given all the prepublication controversy over Abandoned it's certain that Oprah, Queen of All Media won't be touching this one with a ten foot pole.