“All autobiographies are lies,” George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1898. “I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies.” The veracity of autobiographical writing is under scrutiny once again following allegations that the bestselling memoir The Salt Path is not quite the “unflinchingly honest” account of one couple’s triumph over adversity as billed.
Even if you are not one of the two million people to have bought the book, and haven’t seen the film released this summer, you will doubtless know the story of a couple’s 630-mile journey along the South Coast Way after facing homelessness and a diagnosis of terminal illness. Published in 2018, The Salt Path struck a chord during lockdown as readers discovered the solace of walking and nature during the pandemic. But this tale of wild-camping and the kindness of strangers, not to mention the seemingly miraculous healing powers of a long hike, has gone from word-of-mouth sensation to publishing scandal due to the charges of omission (including past theft) and possible commission levelled by the Observer at its author Raynor Winn (real name Sally Walker). Winn has described the article as “grotesquely unfair [and] highly misleading”.
Memoir can be a deceptively explosive genre. “I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers,” Oprah Winfrey told James Frey publicly, after his addiction memoir A Million Little Pieces, which her book club propelled on to the bestseller lists, was exposed as wildly overblown in 2006. Readers feel similarly betrayed by Winn – perhaps more so. Frey, who has just published a novel after 20 years, made no bones about his unreliability as a narrator and former addict. Following in the muddy footsteps of memoirs such as Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun and Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (shortlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for non-fiction), The Salt Path was part of the gentler trend of redemptive nature writing that blossomed after the misery memoir had been wrung dry.
The line between fact and fiction is inevitably blurred. No one is surprised that memoirists omit or embellish details, or that novelists draw on their own lives. Writers must navigate this conundrum. Julie Myerson was widely criticised for writing about her son’s addiction in her 2009 memoir The Lost Child. In 2022 she addressed the same issues in a novel titled Nonfiction. “This book is completely made up. It is also completely true,” she said in a Guardian interview.
Autofiction exists in this grey area. The genre, which claims the Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux, garners acclaim but rarely huge sales. If The Salt Path had been marketed as autofiction the outcry might have been avoided. But its success rested on the belief that it was a true story.
Though genre-blurring is part of an evolving literary culture, categories are not just about where titles go in bookshops. Readers need to know what is fact or fiction. Many readers who took comfort from The Salt Path would not be seduced by online wellness influencers or miracle cures. In a post-truth era, the credibility of publishing is crucial. The Penguin logo is a symbol of trust.
As Oscar Wilde said “the truth is rarely pure and never simple”. Readers understand this. But it is the duty of memoir writers to tell their truth, however murky or complicated it may be.
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