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Vulture

Edited by Dan Kois & Lane Brown

 

Tube Junkie

4/30/08

10:30 AM

Fake Memoirist ‘Margaret B. Jones’ on Video

Blogger Harry Allen has unearthed a ten-minute video of Margaret Seltzer, whose growing-up-in-the-hood memoir, Love and Consequences, was debunked last month. The video — possibly recorded by Riverhead as part of an electronic press kit to publicize the book — is the first real look we've gotten at the author, whose book was recalled and pulped before she really got out into the publicity world. And what Allen notes implicitly we'll make explicit: How on earth did "Margaret B. Jones" ever think she was going to get away with it? She's not that good of an actress or improviser — as Allen points out, she slips a number of times just in this video, including calling a made-up nephew "it" and a "thing" — and the video reminds us of nothing so much as us, if we were pretending to be an ex-gangbanger. Sure, we watch The Wire and all, but it wouldn't take long for someone to say, "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

EXCLUSIVE! The Video That Her Publisher Hoped You Would Never See [Media Assassin]

Related: Fake Memoirist Dupes ‘Times,’ Publisher; But Thankfully Not Oprah [Daily Intel]
Flava of the Month [NYM]

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