Another memoir has been proven to be largely fabricated.
Herman Rosenblat's “Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love that Survived” is a story about his future wife when she threw to him over the barbed wire fence of the concentration camp where he was held as a boy and then meeting her 10 years later in New York, falling in love, and getting married.
The only problem? Rosenblat apparently made it all up. No, not the part about at being at Buchenwald and other concentration camps. Just the part about how his wife tossing food to him over the barbed wire fence and then meeting her on a blind date 10 years later. You know, the whole story of the book.
At least this time they discovered it before the book hit the shelves. But it was too late for Oprah who, according to The Times, "twice invited Mr Rosenblat on to her talk show, hailed the book as “the single greatest love story ... we've ever told on air”.
Granted, you can't necessarily blame Oprah for falling for it. She was probably introduced to the book through a friend in the publishing industry who assured her that the book was legit.
But it makes you wonder what's wrong with the publishing industry. After James Frey's “A Million Little Pieces” was exposed as a hoax, the industry promised to do better job fact checking the memoirs they intend to publish. Yet this book, along with “Love and Consequences,” and “Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years" have all managed to slip through the fact checking cracks.
Maybe the publishing industry should adapt the motto that wise investors use when hit up by people offering miraculous returns on their money: If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
In the meantime, if Oprah or anyone else is looking for an true memoir about finding love -- even in the most difficult of circumstances, might I recommend this book? Unlike other memoirs, I can guarantee this one to be 100% accurate.