Today's Big Fake: Nasdijj

Not content with the James Frey and JT LeRoy imbroglios or the firing of SF Weekly's 'The Infiltrator', LA Weekly has uncovered -- the right word, since the book was published in 2000 -- another memoir hoax. Courtesy Mediabistro.

This one's about a supposedly Navajo writer who called himself Nasdijj and got Houghton Mifflin to publish a book called The Blood Runs Like A River Through My Dreams. That ring any bells? Didn't think so. Nevertheless, it shows how eager publishers and readers are for stories of struggle, suffering and redemption.

More bang for the buck (ouch!): In the SF Chronicle today, cartoonist Don Asmussen suggests JT Leroy was actually Carol Channing.

hoaxes, literary hoaxes