Lit Thieves Ready To Talk
That guy that's usually tapping at his laptop and gazing off into the middle distance at the cafe has suddenly disappeared. He's at home furiously typing his tell-all memoir: "The world knew me as a female refugee from the Phillipines who escaped a life of political oppression, violence, prostitution and drugs but now I must reveal myself as a midwestern white boy who lied about it all to sell a few books. The ironic thing is, none of the fake pain I was writing about can compare to the actual devastation of living with this lie for the past ten years."
Yeah, man, woe is you.
So, James Frey may be the Jayson Blaire of memoir publishing and the floodgates of investigation are open. One identity assumer in particular is having a rough time lately. Nasdijj has been under fire from Sherman Alexie for years, but no one in the publishing industry has been listening. Until now, of course. Nasdijj, aka Tim Barrus, shit on the shoulders of a giant when he bit Alexie's "This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" story and donned a Native American identity for a bunch of books that are now being recalled. LA Weekly is reporting that his next book will be the story of his lie, which he probably started writing around the time he first visited the Smoking Gun piece on Frey.
Meanwhile, an email seen by L.A. Weekly suggests that Barrus is already attempting to parlay his newfound notoriety into a tell-all memoir. In an ironic twist, he calls the new work a novel. The email, addressed to an editor at Penguin, appears to have originated from Nasdijj’s private account. It reads in part--Outed From the Box.
I am Nasdijj. I am the author of several critically claimed books and I am a PEN Book-of-the-Year award-winner. My work has appeared in the New York Times, Esquire, and I have been nominated for a National Magazine Award. My books have been published by Random House/ Ballantine/ Crown. WWNorton. Houghton Mifflin.
I have written a new novel called YEAR OF THE HYENA: THE STORY OF NASDIJJ.
In this book I tell the story of "the scandal of Nasdijj" and who Nasdijj really is -- AND -- WHAT IT HAS BEEN LIKE TO BE NASDIJJ. This is my story. No one else has the truth. No one can tell this story like I can.
This book deals with my founding of Refuge House, a shelter for boys with AIDS, and the current swirling controversy about who I actually am (the media does not have it right).”
A spokeswoman for Penguin would only confirm that Barrus was “shopping around.”
