My favorite literary hoax

As the drama unfolds further surrounding Norma Khouri’s fabrication of her life in order to create the bestseller FORBIDDEN LOVE, Neil Levy, writing for The Age, reflects on the history of hoaxing, and why the uncovering of deceptions still has the power to shock:

We are sometimes tempted to think that truth-telling is a personal matter, a matter of private virtue. But our indignation when a politician lies or is suspected of economy with the truth, whether about an affair (“I did not have sex with that woman”) or matters of public policy – think children overboard, not to mention WMDs – indicates that we also recognise that truth is a priceless public good. Deception threatens to undermine one of the necessary conditions of personal autonomy and of meaningful lives. Too much deceit threatens not only a particular individual’s relationships and achievements, but also the central concerns of each of us.

Because truth is essential to personal autonomy, too much scepticism is dangerous. As our indignation shows, fortunately, most of us are not all that sceptical, not deep down at least. The good society needs to be a trusting society, and we can only trust one another so long as we believe in, and fight for, the possibility of truth. We need, somehow, to strike a precarious balance, between the scepticism that helps inoculate us against demagoguery and keeps us open to alternative views, and the respect for truth and truth-seekers that is a precondition of a society in which each of us can pursue his or her own vision of the good life.

Good points all, and it just goes to show that deception is the cruelest cut of all. Most of the time.

Then, there are instances when hoaxing produces a more humorous effect while shedding light on the craziness of the publishing world. The story’s almost 50 years old, but many of the same points still apply today. Read about my all-time favorite literary hoax after the jump.

Back in the 1950s and 60s, Jean Shepherd was one of the most popular radio personalities in the United States. I won’t get into his life and work here (besides, a new biography will attempt to do that later this fall) but when millions of little kids would listen stealthily to his program in the wee hours night after night, then it’s obvious he was a force to be reckoned with. He’d long made the distinction on his show about “Day People”–those who were regular joes, happy with their lot, orderly and such–and “Night People”, who may have to get up early for work but thrived best at night. The Night People, natch, were the prime audience of Shep’s show.

One night in 1956, Shep (as he was known) decided to play a little trick. He’d been going on about how New Yorkers were obsesed with lists, how they wouldn’t pay attention to something unless they’d read ten reviews or scour the bestseller charts. So he announced the following: “Let’s all go to the local book stores tomorrow and ask for a book, that we, the Night People, know doesn’t exist.” A few hours later, with the help of eager listeners, Shep had a title, a premise, and a backstory: I, LIBERTINE, the madcap swashbuckling adventures of an 18th century rake written by Frederick R. Ewing, a British expert in 18th century erotica.

And so, it happened, as longtime Shep fan Bob Kaye explains:

The first guy walks into the store and asks for “I, Libertine”. The owner says he never heard of it. Man number two walks in asking for it. Now he says “it’s on order.” The next guy comes in. Now he’s on the phone to the distributor. ” Well, after 350 more guys ask for it, Publisher’s Weekly is in shambles!”

You must remember that the listeners KNEW that this was a nonexistent book!

By the next day, reports started to come back. One guy said:

“For years this guy in the 8th Street Bookshop had me buffaloed. You got the feeling that HE actually wrote Kierkegaard! That he was behind Spinoza! If I mentioned Proust he would say, ‘the trouble with Proust was that he never matured.’ So I asked him about Ewing and “I, Libertine”. ‘It’s about time the public discovered him!’ I had him! It was great!

A woman at her bridge party mentioned it. Immediately a discussion broke out and three women decided that they hated it!

Airline pilots, who were listeners, started asking for it all over the world. Then a kid who was going to Rutgers wrote Shep: “I’m taking this course in the History of English Writing. I did my term paper on F. R. Ewing, British Historian, with footnotes and quotes from the BBC broadcasts. I got a B+ and the professor wrote ‘Superb Research!’ My God, maybe there was no Chaucer! It could have been some guy 400 years ago putting on the whole world!

Then, in Earl Wilson’s column appeared a blurb, “had lunch with Freddy Ewing yesterday.” The PR people who fed the columns were also Shep listeners! It was even reviewed by one of the major book supplements of the time! The reviewers were also fans, and Shep told all the listeners to “put your little hooks in, wherever you can.”

And the story grew, and grew. Everybody–the New York Times, Life, Time, the Wall Street Journal–wanted in on the story. The Archdiocese of Boston banned the book for lewdness and vulgarity. And lo and behold, I, LIBERTINE cracked the New York Times bestseller list–without a single word actually existing!

But even that changed, as Ballantine frantically got in touch with Shep for the paperback rights to the book. Realizing that maybe there was something to it, he–with much-needed help from author Theodore Sturgeon (aka the “90% of everything published is crap” guy)–cranked out some prose and the book was hastily published in September 1956. The kicker? The book made the bestseller list again–but this time, for real.

In all likelihood, the way the publishing industry is set up now, such a hoax couldn’t happen again. But then again, maybe one’s being perpetuated at this very moment, and we’re just not aware of it. It couldn’t be that hard, really: create the buzz, explain that review copies aren’t available because the book’s not ready yet, create demand by having people go into their bookstores demanding copies, create a fake Amazon page with an ever-zooming rank….and voila. But even so, such a hoax wouldn’t have the same magic that I, LIBERTINE once did.