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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 4 July 2017
Wisconsin author says poignant memoir was fake: ‘I’m sorry’

LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — A it and ambulance records
La Crosse author has ac- show no crash victim was
knowledged he falsified transported to a hospital.
most of the claims in his self- Szente told the newspa-
published memoir. per he was involved in a
Tristan Szente’s memoir, motorcycle crash in 2014
“Becoming Me ... Again: or 2015 but didn’t report it
A True Story,” includes de- and sought medical help
scriptions of how a 2014 days later for a concussion,
motorcycle accident left burns and cuts.
him in a coma with a dozen He declined to release his
broken bones, a concus- medical records but ac-
sion and second-degree knowledged that the hos-
burns. He wrote that a doc- pital scene he described
tor told him when he woke never took place.
from his coma that the au- He also told the newspaper
thorities were trying to find he was never diagnosed
the person who hit him and with a brain virus.
two police officers inter- “I wanted to write some-
viewed him. thing positive. I foolishly and
He also described how he wrongfully let it get out of
defeated a rare brain virus hand,” he said. “I just kept
that doctors said would kill writing. I’m sorry. I should
him. The La Crosse Tribune never have done it.”
reported Friday that police Szente self-published his April and chose to remove ment was left with Rosedog also be a reason for ending
have no record of an acci- book through Rosedog the book from print, say- Books by The Associated publication.
dent involving Szente and Books and it was previously ing he wanted to make Press on Monday. Oprah Winfrey threw au-
have no record of any con- priced between $9 to $10 substantial changes and Szente said he removed thor James Frey out of her
tact with him in 2014 or the on Amazon.com, though re-publish later, Rosedog the book from publication book club in 2006 after he
surrounding years. it was not immediately Books spokesman Michael because it was becoming acknowledged fabricating
No one called 911 on the known how many he sold. Knapp told the Tribune. a distraction but later add- parts of his memoir “A Mil-
day of the crash to report He broke his contract in A message seeking com- ed the falsifications could lion Little Pieces.”q