Lee Israel (1939–2014)

This lowlife's claim to fame as a writer are biographies of Bankhead and Estee Lauder. Nobody was hiring for hack biographies so she supplemented her income by first writing, signing and selling to unsuspecting dealers letters from famous people. Later she graduated to stealing original letters from rare book libraries and substituting her miserable forgeries. Israel's writing is very repetitive and not very engaging. One gets the sense that Ms. Israel does not take this poor behavior very seriously, and, indeed, she does not have to do any jail time. It seems that the theft of books or other collectibles does not warrant much attention from either law enforcement or the judiciary. Each time I read about the meagre punishment given to these thieves the more outraged I get (quietly). Melissa McCarthy does seem a very appropriate choice to play this lady in a movie. People will find her cute and funny, as long as you don't own.a bookstore or are a rare book librarian!… (más)

It is noticeable that this is titled memoirs of a lterary forger, rather than confessions. And that sets the tone of the piece. It is an odd combination of misery memior about her descent from making a living as an author to being broke enough to consider forgery. Then there is a sense of bragging about the letters she forged, which are quoted extensively, and how those who she fooled were clearly schmucks who deserved it.
There's some interesting detail about watermarks and typewriters and the mechanics of the process, and that for me was the most interesting. The rest of it was a puff piece and overly full of padding. The author sounds unpleasant and unrepentant and I can't say I feel at all sorry for her and her self-inflicted predicament.
The title is taken form a phrase she put into the Dorothy Parker letter and not a sense of the author's repentance for her crime.… (más)