Look me in the eye and tell me it's true

Early this summer, Algonquin Books will publish David Goodwillie's memoir, Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.

In it, he recounts his post-college adventures and misadventures in the 1990s -- including his failed baseball tryout with the Cincinnati Reds, then heading to New York for a series of jobs ranging from copywriter for a sports auction house to private investigator.

So will the publisher check to be sure Goodwillie did all those things, worked in all those places?

"Perhaps we could," Algonquin publisher Elisabeth Scharlatt says. "But in the case of a memoir, we do rely on the honesty of our authors."

Welcome to the post-Frey world of book publishing. Despite the brouhaha that followed James Frey's made-up stories in his best-selling memoir, A Million Little Pieces (and despite a tongue-lashing by a chastened Oprah Winfrey, who sent Pieces skyrocketing up the best-seller lists when she chose it for her book club), publishers appear to be doing little or nothing to ensure that it won't happen again.

"As much as Oprah would like to see (fact-checking) happen, I think there might be more of an editor and a publisher looking deeply into the writer's eyes," Scharlatt says. "Publishing has never been a science. This is a prime example of how personal and casual it can be."

Brian Tart, editor in chief and publisher at Dutton, echoes Scharlatt's sentiments. "We're not hiring people to check the facts of the books, and we're not changing how we do things at all. But it's a time when we all have to look our authors in the eye and say, 'We trust each other, right?' "

In other words: Trust, but don't verify.

But does it really matter?

Not much, if the Frey controversy is any indicator. A Million Little Pieces continues to sell well. (It's No. 12 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list.) And so long as publishers have no financial incentive to change, there's not much chance they will, industry watchers say.

"I don't think we'll see consumers voting with their pocketbooks," says Jerome Kramer of The Book Standard, a publication that covers the publishing industry. "If a book captures someone's imagination, consumers aren't going to decide not to buy it because it's a memoir.

"Is it going to be a little harder for the next sensational memoir to get off the ground? Absolutely," he adds. "But if there is one, it will get off the ground."

Peter Osnos, senior fellow for media at the Century Foundation, agrees. "The temptation to put standards aside in pursuit of sales volume is enormous."

Not a new controversy

Made-up memoirs are nothing new, and past incidents have had minimal effect on how publishers do business. In 1979, for example, writer Mary McCarthy accused Lillian Hellman of lying in her memoirs An Unfinished Woman and Pentimento. Among McCarthy's more memorable put-downs: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'"

And J.T. LeRoy's publisher, Last Gasp, announced last week that it would publish the cult favorite's next novel, despite revelations that the author is a 40-year-old woman and not a young, HIV-positive former male prostitute.

On the other hand, publisher Riverhead has canceled its contract with Frey for two new books.

Fact-checking may not work

Some industry watchers go so far as to call fact-checking an anachronism.

"The whole notion of fact-checkers is as antiquated as the Model T," Osnos says. "You don't need fact-checkers. What you need is reliable writers and skeptical editors."

Even with fact-checkers, "you can't fully protect yourself from somebody bent on hoaxing you," says Sara Nelson of Publishers Weekly. "Fact-checking is not a panacea."

Says Osnos: "When you're making certain assertions having to do with facts, it really is the obligation, to the extent that (the editor) can, to challenge the writer. ... Our job is to make the book as strong as it can be. That means knowing everything about it."

When the process breaks down

That process, Osnos says, broke down in the Frey fiasco. "There was an editor, a copy editor and a lawyer -- three stages in which certain kinds of questions in the Frey book could and should have been addressed, and they weren't."

Yet Sean McDonald, Frey's editor, insisted in a statement released after Oprah's flogging that "from the beginning, I understood it to be a memoir. ... I was assured by James that the events he recounted in the book -- even the most extraordinary ones -- were accurate."

So why not just hire a team of fact-checkers to vet every memoir?

Not always cost-effective, say some publishers.

"Indeed, it's not feasible to do the sort of thorough fact-checking that some books may require, in terms of both money and time," Algonquin's Scharlatt says. "We do go back to authors over and over again, getting them to confirm facts and questioning the veracity of their stories, but sometimes it's just not possible."

Literary agent Jeff Kleinman of Folio Literary Management suggests that publishers might include a stipulation in an author's contract that says he or she can be sued for not telling the truth. "It would be a lot easier than fact-checking."

Disclaimers vs. accuracy

More typically, however, publishers are apt to do what Doubleday did with Frey: add a publisher's note or disclaimer that some events or facts may have been altered.

Or they may at least ask more questions.

"We've certainly gone back and talked to the agent and author to say the landscape has shifted, and we want to make sure that you stand behind the book in the way you did before this all happened," says Tart of Dutton, which will release several memoirs this spring.

The landscape may have shifted, but Kramer believes that the circumspection that comes with the post-Frey era may not bring long-lasting changes.

"Do I think they are going to build new codes of ethics or actual practices? I doubt that," Kramer says. "I think the smell test -- to paraphrase somebody else's coverage of this -- the sniffers will be turned up a bit. That's just natural. But publishers can rest assured it will more or less blow over."

And about Goodwillie and all those job he claims to have held?

USA TODAY did a spot-check at three of his professed former employers, and each confirmed that he had, indeed, worked there.

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