As Long As It Isn’t True: A Literary Scandals Podcast

After her writing career as a biographer was destroyed by a book that tanked, as well as her off-putting personality, Lee Israel fell into poverty and began forging letters and literary documents of prominent 20th-century authors. She was so good at slipping into the words and minds of others that some of her forgeries even made their way into an early edition of a 2007 biography on Noël Coward. But like all good career criminals, Lee's success would come to an untimely end. She would tell her story in her 2008 memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Memoirs of a Literary Forger, which was adapted into a feature film starring Melissa McCarthy as Lee — for which she would be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Additional narrations were provided by Sharon Hyland. Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Memoirs of a Literary Forger by Lee Israel

• "How A Successful Biographer Became A Forger," NPR

“You can’t translate poetry into prose. That’s why it’s poetry.”

At a poetry reading at a San Francisco art gallery in October 1955, Allen Ginsberg — one of the defining members of the Beat generation — debuted a poem called "Howl." Lauded for its portrayal of what it meant to be an outcast in 1950s society and for its depiction of drug use and sexuality, its success led to Ginsberg's first collection of poetry. Within five months of its publication, the U.S. government seized some 300 copies of it, only to drop the case fairly quickly. The San Francisco police department, however, was not impressed and launched a local, as opposed to a federal, effort to ban the book from city bookstores. Literary freedom of speech was being put on trial yet again, and the poem was about to have the last laugh.

Additional narrations were provided by Sharon Hyland. Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• "The 'Howl' Heard Round the World," Encyclopedia Britannica

• Black, Joel (2003). "'Arrested for Selling Poetry!' or 'You Wouldn't Want Your Children Reading This': The Historical Significance of the 'Howl' Obscenity Trial," Concordia University

“Rapidly growing interest in the subject of homosexuality has made novels on this theme a big seller...”

Happy Pride Month! After one publishing house started finding success with publishing books focusing on themes of homosexuality in the late 1940s and early 1950s, they began keeping a mailing list of those interested in gay books. But the United States Postal Service started catching on, and the publishers were indicted on obscenity charges.

That didn't stop Donald Webster Cory, the pen name of American academic Edward Sagarin, from starting his own gay mail-order book business in 1952: the Cory Book Service. But Sagarin was plagued by internalized homophobia, and for decades maintained that homosexuality was a mental illness that can be cured. That is, until another queer academic had enough of Edward's drama.

Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement by David K. Johnson

• "The Book Club That Helped Launch the Gay-Rights Movement," The New Yorker

• "Sagarin, Edward (Donald Webster Cory)," GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer Culture

"It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!"

When British author D.H. Lawrence first published one of his last novels, Lady Chatterley's Lover, in 1928, he knew it was going to stir up controversy. Some might even say he wrote it that way on purpose, a result of career-long persecution and harassment from the British government for not adhering to their standards of living. In 1960, thirty years after the author died, Penguin Books was about to publish an unabridged version of Lady Chatterley in the form of an affordable paperback. The government was not having it, which led to one of the best known literary obscenity trials of the 20th century.

Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• The book that changed Britain: Why the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial still matters 60 years later, Penguin Books

• Inside the Game-Changing Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Esquire

"He's a writer, you know, they don't tell everything that's factual and true..."

When Oprah Winfrey chose James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces for her book club in 2005, she had no idea the kind of monster she was about to endorse. This episode of As Long As It Isn't True investigates how large portions of A Million Little Pieces, which was originally marketed as a memoir, turned out to be wholly fabricated and completely false — and how Oprah held those responsible for it accountable live on her talk show.

Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• "A Million Little Lies," The Smoking Gun

• "Picking Up the Pieces: How James Frey flunked rehab, and why his fakery matters," Slate

• "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness," The New York Times

"If you turn over a rock in these small towns, you just never know what you’ll find."

In 1956, young mother and housewife Grace Metalious published Peyton Place, her debut novel, which would go on to become one of the highest-selling books ever published. But it was also considered scandalous and dirty for its portrayal of sex, adultery, incest, and abortion. On this month's episode, we're looking into how Peyton Place wasn't actually the trash it was made out to be, as well as the forgotten legacy of its feminist-trailblazing creator.

Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• Peyton Place (1999 ed.) by Grace Metalious

• Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious by Emily Toth

• Unbuttoning America: A Biography of Peyton Place by Ardis Cameron

• "Peyton Place's Real Victim," Vanity Fair

• "50 Shades of Grace," New Hampshire magazine

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes were just two poets who fell in love, until gender roles, mental illness, and misogyny got in the way. Our sophomore episode is diving into their marriage, Plath's life and craft, and how Hughes and his sister took advantage of Plath's work after her suicide at the age of 30.

Additional narrations were provided by Sharon Hyland. Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• Her Husband: Hughes and Plath – A Marriage by Diane Middlebrook

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark

• The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm

• The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956–1963 edited by Peter K. Steinberg & Karen V. Kukil

After making it big as the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and then the grandfather of the non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, American author Truman Capote set out to write his magnum opus, a literary work of art that would rival Marcel Proust. But the book, Answered Prayers, became the greatest novel that never was, due to high-society outrage and inner demons...

Additional narrations in this episode were provided by Sharon Hyland. Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.

Instagram: @literaryscandals

Selected bibliography:

• Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century by Roseanne Montillo

• Capote's Women by Laurence Leamer

• "Capote's Swan Dive," Vanity Fair

• "Answered Prayers: the mysterious manuscript that devastated Truman Capote," Penguin Random House

• "Why, Exactly, Did Truman Capote Expose His High-Society Confidantes’ Darkest Secrets?," British Vogue

Welcome to As Long As It Isn't True, a literary podcast delving into some of literature's biggest scandals and controversies, both those well known and those less remembered. Listen here for a taste of what's to come.