A couple years ago at a “Conference on post war literature in Hawaii” I did a reading with Tim O’Brien and also got to hear him deliver a keynote speech. Something he said then still resonates to this day, and I paraphrase: “In the end it doesn’t really matter if a story is true or not, as long as it’s a good story and if so, it’ll last long after we’re all dead and gone.”

When I repeated O’Brien’s assertion at another – all non fiction writers – gathering recently at “Pittsburgh University” the writers on my panel all disagreed vehemently with that statement.

This came about because someone in the audience mentioned the latest brouhaha regarding the literary fraud committed by a Valley Girl named Margaret B. Jones who masqueraded as a drug runner for the Bloods in LA in an autobiography called “Love and Consequences”:and that’s only preceded a few days when Misha Defonseca’s “Surviving With Wolves” was revealed to be a hoax. It’s the story about a young Jewish girl in Belgium who survived WWII era and raised by wolves and walked for thousands of kilometers, which was made into a movie. Both hoaxes, by the way, were revealed by family members of the authors.

To ask O’Brien’s question then, Does it matter as long as it’s a good story? Flannery O’Connor, that great short story writer who died too young, in her only book of essays, “Mystery and Manners” basically said that you can get away with anything as long as you’re really good, but by that same token, most writers don’t get away with much.

On the other hand, James Frey’s autobio A Million Little Pieces sold well long after Oprah chewed him out for making things up. Last checked, it’s in the 1000’s rank of amazon which is pretty good.

I guess his falls into the category of “good story regardless of origin”.

Still, memoirs that are linked to historical moments tend to be much harder to fabricate.

Poet “Patricia Jabbeh Wesley”, a survivor of the war in Liberia in which she saw rapes and murders, was on the same panel with me in Pittsburgh. She thought that it’s important to tell the facts of what happened, to bear witness, as it were. To make things up in a memoir is therefore to do injustice to what historically happened and undermines the story. In her case, she ’s absolutely right.

But in America there’s the ethnic problem in relation with the publishing world. Until recently, if you are a minority, there’s an expectation that you should write a memoir instead of coming up with something fanciful. You are your story, so to speak. Lots of minority writers end up with a memoir and never got to the novel as no one is interested—sort of a one horse town for us.

Maxine Hong Kingston, I’m told, initially wanted “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts” to be published as fiction since so much of it was about her inner life and fantasy, but it was in the end sold as a memoir to great acclaim. Not only did it do exceptionally well it opened the floodgate for other writers of color to write their family stories.

Does it matter that half of her story is happening in her head, taking a life in mythology?

Not to me but it can be a double-edged sword. I know immigrant friends who went nowhere with their novels until they offer to write the I-come-from-terrible-past memoir as an offering and grandma had bound feet. It’s as if if you’re a minority, your imagination is less trustworthy than your story. America prefers to hear your sob story – tell us how terrible it is and we’ll give you fast food and freedways and American Idol – much more, a kind of public confession, to affirm America’s grandeur – something I admit I’ve done as well over the years.

And for people who have very bland biographies, making things up or exaggerating past traumas, especially if you don’t possess literary skills for the subtle and the nuance, are almost necessary to make a tepid story hot.

Or else you can cannibalize others’ stories.

But there’s a “right” way to do it vs the wrong way, if it comes down to it.

Robert Olen Butler got a Pulitzer for “A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain”, a short story collection told from point of views of Vietnamese living in New Orleans. A Vietnam vet who spoke some Vietnamese, Butler spent quite a bit of time talking to these real folks and, well, tell their stories. I may not like the fact that Butler moved into my territory but I have written short stories from a white character’s point of views. So fair is fair.

It’s a little different than Jones who pretended to have native America ancestry and to have grown up with black foster brothers. Why? Cuz you get found out, that’s why, especially if your siblings hate you.

So maybe for writers the ultimate lessons are: Treat your siblings well. And write a damn good story no matter what genre it happens to fall in.

PS. I just finished a collection of short stories tentatively named “Birds of Paradise,” soon to be published. And it’s refreshing to have written something non-autobiographical, fully imagined as opposed to my previous book, “Perfume Dreams”, an autobiography.

Hope I can get away with it.