A number of recent fake memoirs fall into the category of "misery lit", where the authors claim to have overcome overwhelming losses (i.e. bereavement, abuse, addiction, and poverty).
As a result of recent best-selling memoirs having been outed for falsification, there have been calls for stronger vetting and fact checking of an author's material.
Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood (Binjamin Wilkomirski), The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams (Nasdijj),[2] Love and Consequences (Margaret Seltzer),[3] and Go Ask Alice (Anonymous)[4] garnered praise from The New York Times before exposed as false.
Two authors of recent fake memoirs, James Frey (A Million Little Pieces), and Herman Rosenblat (who was featured before he wrote Angel at the Fence), as well as an imposter assuming the name Anthony Godby Johnson (A Rock and a Hard Place), appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
[citation needed] There is also the case of people who build up a public profile as a survivor of a disastrous event, with the intention of drawing attention and profiting from it.