The Irish Times view on the Salt Path controversy: what should we expect from a memoir?
the current controversy
surrounding The Salt Path and its author, Raynor Winn, reopens old questions about the uneasy covenant between truth, storytelling, and the commercial allure of authenticity.
Winn's bestselling memoir, which charts a journey of homelessness, illness and redemption along Britain's South West Coast Path, was embraced not just for its lyrical prose but for its claim to lived experience. It was
adapted into a film
which was well received on its recent release. That it now faces scrutiny over factual inconsistencies – some significant, some trivial – recalls James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, an addiction memoir later exposed as heavily embellished.
What is it about the memoir that leads to this type of controversy? Partly it is the genre's paradoxical nature: shaped by the subjective impressions of memory yet marketed as unfiltered truth. Unlike the novel, the memoir makes a tacit promise to the reader: this happened, exactly as I say it did. When that pact is broken, the betrayal is not only literary but ethical.
The fault does not lie solely with authors. Publishers and readers, too, collude in the myth of the pure, unmediated self. We crave stories that are not just well-told but demonstrably true. Truth, in this context, becomes a kind of currency. And where there is currency, there is temptation.
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Perhaps it is time to abandon the binary of truth and falsehood in favour of something more honest: a recognition that narrative, even in memoir, is construction. This is not to excuse fabrication, but to question our often naive appetite for the unvarnished self. The unreliable author, like the unreliable narrator, may be less a fraud than a mirror, showing us not who they are, but what we want them to be.
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Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
My name has always stood out on life's roll calls but now I have to share it
'That's a great name,' the receptionist says to me as I sign into a gym class. I get this a lot. Teachers, postmen, secretaries, they always have a comment to make about my name. 'Sounds like someone important!' a nurse said to me recently as she filled in the details of my hospital band. I still don't know how to respond – I can't exactly take credit for it. But it has become a pathetic point of pride, and sitting there in ill health I thought: 'Well, at least I've still got that going for me.' This illusion came crashing down when the receptionist excitedly turned to me as she realised: 'Oh wait! It's like Molly-Mae!' This was the second time in as many weeks that someone had suggested I shared my name with the influencer and Love Island demigod Molly-Mae Hague (she is engaged to boxer Tommy Fury). 'Well the spelling's different,' I could hear myself stuttering in what sounded like a sad, sad attempt to reclaim something that, evidently, was never even mine. Up until this point, I have smugly avoided the struggle of the Mary Murphys and Seán O'Connors of the world. Neither my first nor second name is obscure, and yet my full name has always stood out on life's roll calls. So standing there as just some other Molly Fur(e)y, humbled by this receptionist's critical spelling error, I had to wonder: what is in a name? Can our identity be wrapped up in it or is it just some random jumble of letters used to identify us? Shakespeare's Juliet was sure of the latter when she first said ('a rose by any other name would smell as sweet', etc), but I have always felt my name was as specific to me as my fingerprint. Living in the name-shadow of £6 million-worth of blonde and beauty, however, I've had to question the vanity of such an assumption. READ MORE 'You are such a Molly,' people have said to me. I do not know what this means, but it is always satisfying to hear. Implicit in the flippant remark is the grand suggestion that by some stroke of luck my parents managed to land on the exact mix of sounds and letters that captured my essence when naming me. My dad is, as ever, less existential about the matter. 'Well every Tom, Dick and Harry was called Rachel,' he tuts, laughing at his own joke. 'But you did just look like a Molly,' he shrugs, further enmeshing my sense of self with the name. Is it any wonder that a name-doppelgänger has inspired such a crisis of identity? The year I was born, 1999, Molly was the 63rd most popular baby name for girls in Ireland. Compared to the 615 Chloes born that year, a paltry 73 Mollys arrived. By 2024, it had jumped 41 places to 22nd most popular but, in 2021 it hit its peak, ranking 18th with 219 Mollys named. Standing at a traffic light as a woman coos at her baby named Molly, I am confronted with this veritable rise before my very eyes. 'There are four other Mollys in her creche!' she explains to me when I ask her about it. 'It's trendy at the moment.' I am winded by the accusation that my name is merely fashionable, offended at the implication that it is basic and, therefore, that I am too. As if I didn't have enough on my plate with the Molly-Mae of it all, I now have the impending banality of my first name to worry about. I am not the first to feel threatened by my name-doppelgängers. In 2021, fuelled by what he described in a Reddit post as 'a spell of pandemic boredom', Arizona college student Joshua Swain created the Swainbowl: an event for all Joshua Swains to come together and 'fight for the right to keep this common name'. Armed with pool noodles and a lifetime's worth of anonymous frustration, hundreds of Joshes duelled in a park in Lincoln, Nebraska. [ Love Island review: Even with two Irish hopefuls in the villa I'm ready to pack my bags and head home Opens in new window ] I do not necessarily feel the need to challenge Molly-Mae to a duel (although I have not ruled out the distinct possibility that she may want to challenge me ), but I do quite like the idea of gathering all of my name-doppelgängers in the one place. Maybe my defensiveness would be quelled if I just got a good look at them all – compared notes, heard about what they have done with the name, got to the bottom of what it means to be 'such a Molly'. [ Molly-Mae Hague denies Tommy Fury break-up and documentary are 'publicity stunt' ] I suppose the idea that there is something inherently 'you' about your name is what makes it so uncanny to meet people with the same one. They offer a foil to your little life, or rather a distorted mirror that makes you consider all of the parallel lives you could have led. This Molly Fur(e)y managed to be a doctor! This one is a businesswoman! This one is an influencing millionaire! Placing my urge to out-Molly Fur(e)y all of them aside, perhaps there is a camaraderie to be found in that. Maybe I should hold my name-doppelgängers in the same bracket as Irish heads spotted abroad or people wearing the same jumper as you on the street – familiar strangers. Should I ever come across Molly-Mae, I will offer her the knowing nod reserved for such encounters, and I will be sure to tell her just what a great name I think she has.
Irish Independent
a day ago
- Irish Independent
How a book forger fooled the literary world until his audacious ruse was rumbled
History Controversy in the book world, like the debate around the veracity of The Salt Path, is nothing new. Excerpts from Konrad Kujau's faked Hitler Diaries were published through various outlets in the 1980s before their provenance was debunked. Earlier attempts at bamboozlement by bibliopegists, as mentioned by Joseph Hone, include 'Major Byron' claiming to be the poet's son in order to hawk bogus letters and William Henry Ireland's attempts at passing off his own substandard scribbling as undiscovered Shakespeare.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Beers and cheers as Wrexham's latest Hollywood sequel kicks off
Successful Hollywood tales often spawn sequels. But how many are left in the can for Wrexham, the working-class northeast Wales town whose football club is in its fifth season as the subject of a wildly popular Disney+ fly-on-the-wall documentary series? Possibly plenty, judging by the childlike enthusiasm and endearing eccentricity that is on show at the Turf bar at the club's Racecourse ground on Saturday, as the new season kicks off. If anything, the love-in may be strengthening between the town and Wrexham AFC's owners, Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor Rob McElhenney, who have bankrolled the little club's promotion through three divisions to the Championship. This is a club, pub and town now collectively punching above their weight: the local economy is doing better than almost anywhere else in Wales, with a £180 million (€208 million) tourism boom fuelled by global interest in the Welcome to Wrexham Disney+ show. 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On that occasion, hordes of daytime tourists had drunk out all the Madri. On Saturday, things are heading the same way. Griffiths is off duty this time, however, supping his pint outside. The Turf Bar, Wrexham: Inside is a symphony of soft Welsh accents fused with North American twangs. Photograph: Mark Paul Inside is a symphony of soft Welsh accents fused with North American twangs, an echo of the unlikely transatlantic alliance that has brought the town global recognition. I eke out standing room, wedged against a wall by the bar. Nearby, a US couple have snaffled a table with their young son, who dons a Welsh language Wrecsam bobble hat. On my other shoulder is Dave, a Canadian who works at a mine three hours from Calgary. He has flown in just to sample the vibe for Saturday's match, as well as Tuesday's cup fixture. A kid squeezes past us through the mass of limbs. He wears Welsh rugby underpants over his trousers. The waistband says 'Oddballs'. Customers – locals – harvest empty glasses for the staff. This being a wedged pub on a hot day, the musk of flatulence drifts through our zone. Culprit unknown. 'I can breathe, I can breathe,' jokes a barmaid as the queue for beer thins. Meanwhile, I am struggling. Wrexham go a goal up with a penalty against Southampton. Tourists and locals alike scream and blow kisses at the screens. The fairytale continues, for now. Wrexham fans cheering in the Turf as they score a penalty to go one up on Saturday against Southampton — Mark Paul (@MarkPaulTimes) Later, I take a walk around the town. The economic statistics look good on paper but Wrexham hasn't yet morphed into Utopia. There are wrinkles in the success. The pubs teem, there's a buzz on the streets. But while the tourists buy beer, the number of shuttered retail outlets suggests they don't stay long to buy much else. Hope Street, an awkwardly-named thoroughfare in the centre, is an avenue of vape shops, charity shops, barber shops and shut shops. There is a plot twist back at the Turf. Southampton equalise in the 90th minute. In the 96th minute, they go 2-1 up. Woe descends. There'll be no Championship fairytale for Wrexham today. As the whistle blows, silence fills the Turf ... for all of about three minutes. [ Ryan Manning's late free-kick helps Southampton ruin Wrexham's Championship return Opens in new window ] A mural of Wrexham AFC manager, Phil Parkinson, outside The Turf pub. Photograph: Mark Paul The frivolity, at an incongruous level for 2.30pm, soon intensifies if anything. The result appears to be forgotten. The pub gets busier than it was during the match. A seven-piece band sets up in a corner beneath one of the television screens: three of them, for some reason, are tooting saxophones. The singer, aged maybe in his late 60s, looks one of the youngest of the lot, as they belt out football tunes and ballads in Welsh. Who is that, I ask a local. 'It's Geraint Lövgreen,' comes the reply. 'He is one of the best-known singers in the Welsh language. That's his daughter over there, look ...' His daughter is Mari Lövgreen, a Welsh language television presenter. She sings along as she watches her dad's band. US tourists try to sing along too, but they have no idea what is going on. It's entirely possible that nobody knows what's going on, but none of that seems to matter to anyone. The sun is out. So is the fun. Welcome to the madhouse in Wrexham, the town that won Hollywood's lottery and is still loving every minute.
