JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The literary world has recently been abuzz with the story of AJ Finn, the author of the bestselling THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW. It turns out that Finn, under his real name of Dan Mallory, is a publishing executive how seems to have gone through life lying about everything - his health, family members being dead, advanced degrees, work experience, etc, etc. The story the New Yorker did about him is amazing - and perhaps the most amazing part is being exposed as a four-Pinocchio pants on fire guy hasn't hurt his career at all.Another New Yorker, who hasn't landed quite on her feet, is Anna Delvey, the "Soho Grifter," who spun a web of lies about being an heiress that enabled her to live like one for quite some time - until hotels and art galleries began to demand payment. She's now on trial for grand larceny and theft of services, but even in the courtroom, she's managed to show up wearing Michael Kors, Yves Saint Lauren and Victoria Beckham. How is she paying for it? Well, she is very good at talking people into giving her things.
The part that amazes me about folks like Mallory and Delvey is how they live with themselves. I don't mean morally and ethically - I mean how can you lie and lie without having a heart attack from the anxiety of getting caught?I was a terrible liar as a child, in that I would attempt a bald-faced assertion that I hadn't gotten into the chocolate chip cookies with crumbs at my feet and chocolate smeared on my mouth. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I mastered the kindly lies that make people feel better - saying, "Isn't this lovely!" instead of "I already have this," when getting a gift.
As an adult, I got better, as one does. I lied every time Ross asked me if I could see his bald spot. No regrets. I would also lie when he would ask me, while I was away on book tour, if I missed him. Well, he was at home, cooking dinner, driving kids, settling arguments and cleaning out the litter box - all things I would be doing were I at home. Meanwhile, I was getting room service in a Hilton in Houston or Denver, and would be picked up in the morning by a cheerful escort to be driven around town to places where people treated me like a rock star."Oh, yes, sweetheart, I miss you a lot." Not sorry for that one, either.
I've gotten out of a few tickets for things like not having my registration up to date or going past my inspection, but I suspect those were more about looking like a helpless white-haired lady than my convincing claim that, "I didn't realize it was due last month!" And of course I have a long track record of telliing my editor my manuscript would be done on X date, and not coming through - but at the time I said it, it was the truth. I'm just utter rubbish at estimating my writing speed.
So Reds, have you ever told a little white lie? Tried to skip out of trouble? Pour oil on troubled waters? Has a lie ever backfired on you?
JENN McKINLAY: I'm a very good liar. Seriously, it's like a super power and usually even I'm surprised at what comes out of my mouth. For example, a friend and I were driving in New Haven (college days) and I swerved into the lane beside me because I was rocking out to the Ramones, and the guy I cut off rolled up next to me and began to chew me out (deservedly so). I looked right at him and said, "I'm so sorry. I lost a contact lens and I can't see a thing!" He blinked and said, "Oh, well, drive safe!" At which point, my friend and I drove off, cackling with the Ramones still cranking. Truly, I had no idea I was going to say that and it totally worked! That being said, I haven't had to wield my "gift" much since the misspent days of my youth. I hope it hasn't atrophied. LOL.RHYS BOWEN: It turns out I'm a good liar too. When the Reds had the famous Name That Red panel and each had to make up outlandish stories I was the one who fooled the audience every time... to the point when I thought there should be some career advantage in being such a bare faced liar! In real life I was brought up in a strict Christian household and would be sweating bullets if I lied. I think the worst I ever did was to tell my parents I was going to a G movie when in fact it was more PG. But I have been good about keeping surprise parties secret with appropriate fibs.
JULIA: How about you, dear readers? Have you been telling fibs? Now's the chance to confess all...
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ReplyDeleteWhile I may be reasonably good at those inoffensive little lies we tell so that someone else’s feelings aren’t hurt or that help to keep a surprise from being revealed too soon, I have never been particularly good at telling lies. I never got away with lying as a child; consequently, it simply doesn’t occur to me to be something other than truthful . . . .
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteJoan, I am reminded that honesty is the best policy!
Delete:)
DeleteAs a child I engineered elaborate ruses to support my lies. When it was time to brush my teeth at night, I'd go into the bathroom and run the water and wet my toothbrush - but not brush. I'm sure I didn't fool my mother, and it's some kind of miracle I have very strong intact teeth today. As an adult? Thankfully I don't have much need (and love brushing my teeth twice a day) except for looking innocently into the cop's face...
ReplyDeleteI did the exact same thing with my toothbrush - even adding some toothpaste to it to make it smell minty. In the time it took, I could have just brushed and saved myself lots of cavities! BTW My neighbors Anne and Jim say "Hi" from Asheville!
DeleteI remember engaging in similar schemes, not realizing that indeed, it would have been faster and easier simply to do as my mother had said!
DeleteI didn't know I had company. Unknown - how cool is that! (What is your name, though?) Please say hi back to two of my favorite in-laws.
DeleteHi Edith and Julia - I tried to enter my name but it came up as "unknown" - not very friendly! I'm Susan....from Argyle. Such a small world! Edith, I live up the street from your in-laws and it's a long story but realized we were all connected. And Julia, we too have a connection with your Grandmother and Argyle! And we're all tooth-brushing scoff-laws to go with it!
DeleteFifteen years in Atlanta taught me how to spin a social lie: "Why, you are too kind!" (basket of okra on the front steps)
ReplyDelete"You're looking well." (I can tell you're fasting because you just ate your Styrofoam cup)
"How's the family?" (For women born in the South, discussing kin can take hours).
"I'm sure I don't know." (You do know whose dog raided the curb-side garbage cans).
"It's a little something I threw together" (I saw you at the grocery store before nine, buying the ingredients)
Ha ha Margaret! I will take that basket of okra from you any time!
DeleteI love the way Southern speakers throw in those extra layers of certainty. You don't say, "I don't know," the way a word-thrifty Northerner would. You check your conscience thoroughly first, and then say, "I'm sure I don't know," as if you might have known and hidden it from yourself, but, nope, you don't know.
DeleteThe older I get, the worse I can manage to lie. It is difficult enough remembering what I said and did and thought without having to make it up as I go along. I do manage the little white lies, as in the answer to "does this make me look fat?" However the answer I give in the dressing room may be more truthful than the one I give as we are ready to walk into a reception at Buckingham Palace. There is a time and and place for everything.
ReplyDeleteNow, about Finn and Delvey -- I haven't read the articles yet, more interested in the one about dinosaurs, but I did read BAD BLOOD by John Carreyrou, investigative reporter for the WSJ. This completely blew my mind. Talk about lies, deception, lack of moral compass, not to mention adverse effect on lives! It's going to be an HBO special, "The Inventor." This woman, Elizabeth Holmes, got away with murder, literally, depending on how you define the word.
All three stories are incredible—the Finn and Delvey I read in the NewYorket—jaw dropping! And Elizabeth Holmes—I watched a 2 hour documentary on this twice! I was so riveted!
DeleteHank, read the book. Trust me.
DeleteOh, I have!! It's incredible.
DeleteAnd how about the college admissions lying? That’s just breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteOh Hank, The Girl is absolutely disgusted over that whole thing.
DeleteThe big difference there is the cheating. I’m fine with fibs where no one is hurt but the crap these parents pulled was egregious.
DeleteI am an average liar. Nothing spectacular, nothing harmful, always done to protect my privacy and my time.
ReplyDeleteNow, I have a question. Why do we absolve some (Dan Mallory) and demonize others (Rachel Dolezal)? Inquiring minds want to know.
The first thought that leaps to my cynical mind is that Dolezal is a woman who didn't make anybody any money, whereas Mallory is a man with a best seller.
Delete"Cynical" or a "keen observer of human nature"?
DeleteMy second husband couldn't tell the truth to save his life. But I don't think it was so much that he intended to lie but that he had to embellish. In time I am sure he actually believed whatever story he was telling - after all he'd heard it in his mind so many times! However he knew I always told the truth and that knowledge served me well when I had to lie when he accused me of something. "You know better than that" was all I said so he dropped it. Moral: try to always be known as a teller of truth because you never know when you just might have to tell a lie.
ReplyDeleteHaving a younger sister who lies like breathing, and a first husband who lied to me with every breath, I detest liars, on principle. When I was younger, being largely truthful myself, I was unable to tell when someone was fibbing to me. So I always told my girls they would get in far less trouble if they told the truth, but watch out if they got caught in a lie. This had varied results, of course. The youngest daughter was truthful to a fault. The oldest lies straight to my face, sometimes. Usually to "save" my feelings, although it has the opposite effect, and I rarely call her on it. Obviously, I learned how to tell.
ReplyDeleteNow I have a pretty highly developed bullshit detector, and can spot an untruth at twenty paces. Most especially at the political level, where it really matters.
Rhys, your stories in the game were so plausible, and your delivery so nonchalant. Secret to a well-delivered lie! And your intent was to entertain, not to hurt anyone.
One of the few lies I ever told, which I couldn't keep up, was that Yul Brynner was my Grandpa Brenner's estranged brother (they were contemporaries) who changed his name "for the stage". It took awhile to convince the guy I was telling, and then I ended up confessing once he finally believed me.
And what about someone who has to exaggerate about everything? Like adding ten stories to the height of his skyscraper (Trump Tower, where the penthouse is of the 65th floor of a 55-story building)? Just the smallest example in a larger body of outright fiction.
ReplyDeleteReminds me... when I was in high school I dated a college guy who had a motorcycle. My parents weren't thrilled with me riding with him on that thing, so I'd tell them I was going to a Young Democrats meeting, leave the house and meet him a block away. They were clueless and fortunately I survived. And I forged my father's name on permission slips from junior high on.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do not think Dan Mallory has been absolved - though an obvious difference is that he's made a gazillion dollars for (himself and) his publisher.
I'm a pretty bad liar. As a child, the uber-responsible "eldest child" - I got such anxiety about my parents finding out (especially my mother) that I'd start sweating bullets the minute I started fibbing. As an adult, well, it hasn't gotten much better.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even good at those "little white lies" to make people feel good - the "does this make me look fat?" answers. I have gotten better at coming up with answers that neatly sidestep the question ("Well, I'm not sure it's the best look for you, honestly."). Although my answer in a department store dressing room or before we walk out the door is much different than my answer once we are out in public. No sense making someone feel badly, especially if they are thrilled with whatever it is.
Sometime back in high school, when I discovered I had a talent for "embroidery," I made a firm, conscious decision to always tell the truth. This decision was fortified many years later when Bill Nighy's character in "Love, Actually," says, "Ask me anything. I'll tell you the truth," with hilarious results. As I have a cynical, analytical mind, I have become the person in my workplace who gets to tell other folks all the difficult truths. But I am kind. I tend to forgive people even as I call them on things, because I understand their motivation.
ReplyDeleteAnd those little white lies? I actually try to tell the truth there, too. So "Does this make me look fat?" will get an answer like, "That dress is stunning on the hangar, but I don't think it's the most flattering line for you. You'll look like a goddess in this other one, though." That's all we really want, right? To look like a goddess?
That said, isn't an ability to lie a positive asset for fiction writers and actors? When we can tell lies that feel like truth to our audiences, we're ahead of the game.
I was freed from the desire to tell lies in 2nd grade. Someone had broken the principal's car window and he was coming around asking all the students if they had seen anything. I had not but wanted to feel important. As in all classrooms, there was a boy who was always in trouble and that day he was wearing a plaid shirt. I told the principal I had seen someone in a plaid shirt running away. The teacher turned to the principal and quietly said, "You can believe Judy. She never lies." Any desire to ever tell another lie was removed at that point. If I knew who the heck that boy was, I would have contacted him and apologized long ago. So, from that moment on, I lived up to my reputation of never lying.
ReplyDeleteDo I tell the little white lies in order to avoid the inevitable flare up that honesty would otherwise bring? Sure, I believe we all do that. I mean, Christmas anyone? And I'm sure at one time the person asking has probably actually looked fat in those jeans. But you like to have the kids experience the magic of the holiday season and you definitely don't want to spend the night on the couch for the truth about those pants.
ReplyDeleteDid I lie as a kid/teenager? Oh certainly. I was fantastic at it, a real artist. But while I told the occasional lie to get out of trouble as I'm sure we all did at one point or another, my real passion was creating a lie to combat boredom.
This happened a lot in my school days. Particularly high school. I had a cooking class as a freshman or sophomore and I hated the class. So, what's a bored but highly intelligent example of awesomeness like me supposed to do? Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't create the elaborate fiction that I was a raging alcoholic. But that's what I did. I spent the entire semester making the entire class believe I was either drunk or hung over in class. And I was GOOOOOOD! I had some of the girls in the class talking about holding an intervention. HA! Keep in mind that I have never really had much in the way of alcohol at all. I hate the taste of pretty much all of it from what little I tried as an adult. But apparently I should've gotten the Oscar for my lead actor portrayal in "Diary of a Teenage Alchoholic".
You might be wondering what the point of this story is. Well, I guess it is probably DON'T BORE ME!
These days, other than those little white lies, I don't lie. It is too easy to get found out, particularly if you have more than one lie going at a time. It's too much work to keep the narrative straight. And if I want to screw up a narrative, I'd want it to be from writing my debut mystery novel, not some random lie of circumstance.
Plus since I am writing reviews for websites and a magazine, a rigid adherence to being honest is kind of required. You may not like what I end up writing about your book, album or concert but you know that it will be coming from a place of honesty.
Well said, Jay. I respect reviewers who are honest - even if it hurts - so much more than hollow praise.
DeleteThank you Jenn.
DeleteI love this blog! This group of writers is very funny. I did not lie well as a child, but improved as I aged. After a recent lie my BFF witnessed, I told her I was one day going to write a book titled "I Learned to Lie in Catholic School". Have any of you seen the Nora Roberts blog about her work being plagiarized? How awful!
ReplyDeleteOkay time to come clean. My real name is eelaroc skcih. I am a werecat. The Avatar of me on Facebook is the real me. The photo Hank took at bookmania is the persona I wear during a sunny day. (sun turns werecats) why a lot of us live in FL. I live a purrrrfect life.
ReplyDeleteOne of the posts I wrote this week is a lie. Guess which one. mrrrh?
As a kid my efforts at lying were pretty sorry. I always got caught out. I don't have the talent. My adult efforts are strictly the kindly white lies, and I don't think I've done any of those in years. I guess maturing means being able to either avoid the subject entirely or tell the truth in a kind way that doesn't hurt.
ReplyDeleteI emphasis to my kids (and my students!) that admitted wrong and apologising immediately is the most effective way to deal with messing up. People will get really angry if you're caught out lying, but it's hard to stay mad at someone begging forgiveness.
DeleteIt never occurs to me to lie, not until later when I wonder if a well told lie wouldn't have served me better, but by then, it's too late and the truth is out there! Social lies, depends. If there is a way to be honest and kind at the same time - Gigi, your goddess remark - priceless and perfect - then that's my route. However, if it's a matter of manners, telling someone desperately ill they look well - not a lie, but a comfort.
ReplyDeleteI told such whoppers as a child, and as a teenager, because I so hated to get in trouble. But the worrying about getting caught out in the lie doubled the anxiety over the original misdeed!
ReplyDeleteHallie, I did exactly the same thing with the boyfriend with the motorcycle--except I burned my leg on the exhaust pipe. And then I had to make up a story about how I got a really bad burn on my leg! I still have the scar. I'll ashamed now when I think how trusting my parents were. The only good thing that came out of my fibbing was, hopefully, a talent for fiction. As an adult, I've tried to keep the fibbing on the page.
Very true, Kait (no pun intended.) Sometimes a well placed lie is much kinder than the harsh truth.
ReplyDeleteAs oldest child, one is expected to set a good example and not lie and I had being the oldest down pat. I would never think of lying even if it got me in trouble. And consequently I never liked it when my brother got away with lying, but he was the male heir so he got away with it. I might be a little jealous there. I was so bad at lying or not doing what was expected of me, that when I was a senior in high school, it was extremely difficult participating in the not sanctioned but accepted senior cut day. I hard such a hard time breaking the rules. I did, surprisingly, make it and cut school with everyone else. Are breaking the rules and lying the same or different? Now as an adult I am better at withholding the truth in order to make someone feel better about themselves. I also am really good at throwing myself under the bus, as my mother would say, and fessing up when I made a mistake before it was even found, I am such a little goody two shoes.
ReplyDeleteYears ago the office where I worked at the time hired a young woman who was a little “off”. After she worked there a few weeks she told people that she was in the Witness Protection Program, that her name wasn’t what we thought it was, that her father was a judge, and there were people(criminals) out to “get” him, and that nobody in her family knew where she lived. We all assumed she was a little crazy. Who would actually TELL this to anyone? A few weeks later she stopped coming to work, and nobody could contact her. I don’t know if she was a good liar, a bad liar, or just in need of mental health care! (And this wasn’t the strangest situation that office had with an employee!)
ReplyDeleteDebRo
Lies and fiction? A couple of years ago, I volunteered to read with a group of fifth grade girls. “What is the difference between fiction and non-fiction?” They absolutely agreed non-fiction was Truth. Fiction was a Lie. We had a very lively 30 minute conversation trying to determine if every story that was “made up” was bad or wrong because it was a lie. And if it was a lie why would their teachers and parents want them to read any fiction? It was enjoyable to “see” their minds working so hard.
ReplyDeleteSince I believe that the secret to telling a lie and getting away with it is keeping it simple (KISS), I don't think I'll ever be very good at it. I over-explain most everything. I have a friend who simply says she can't go somewhere, no explanation of how she is otherwise engaged. It's a bit infuriating, but I'm betting she can lie well if she wants or needs to. Of course, I'm not sure if I've been on the end of a lie from her because, well, I think she's probably good at it. Hahaha! I remember when I was a kid and it was the only time I took something that wasn't mine. I took some dominoes home from my next door neighbor best friend. I couldn't stand the pressure. I cracked like a poor asphalt job before nightfall, and I told my mother and returned the dominoes to my friend. The life of lies and deceit were not for me.
ReplyDeleteWithout going into detail about author AJ Finn's lies, I can say that I will never read another word from him, as the things he lied about could only have come from a person of the lowest character.
The cartoon reminds me of the movie Liar with Jim Carrey. It was hilarious!
ReplyDeleteDiana