Local publisher offers refund for faked story

Publishers make a living with their eyes, but when it comes to trying to separate a great life story from a tall tale, they often must rely on their gut.

Sometimes they get it wrong.

This week, Florida residents Herman and Roma Rosenblat admitted that their account of a fairy tale romance between a concentration camp inmate (Herman) and a young woman (Roma) who throws him apples from the other side of the barbed wire was false. The case is the latest high-profile fake to hit a publishing trade that has seen a string of discredited memoirs in recent years.

Like James Frey's memoir, "A Million Little Pieces,'' -- parts of which were supposed to be based on his drug rehabilitation at the Hazelden Clinic near Center City, Minn. -- the fallout from the Rosenblats' story also is being felt in Minnesota.

The Minneapolis-based Lerner Publishing Group released a children's picture book, "Angel Girl," about the Rosenblats this September through its Carolrhoda Books imprint. About 15,000 of 18,000 copies were sold, said Harry Lerner, founder and chairman of the board. Marketed as a true story, "Angel Girl'' was written by Laurie Friedman, who based it on interviews with the Rosenblats and who reviewed the manuscript with them.

A separate memoir by Herman Rosenblat, "Angel at the Fence," was scheduled to be released in February. Berkley Books has canceled its publication.

Last weekend, Herman Rosenblat, 79, of North Miami Beach acknowledged that the love story he had told for years was fabricated.

Although he was a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp, and has been married to his wife for 50 years, she didn't throw him food from outside the barbed wire.

"I'm shocked," Lerner said Wednesday of the revelations, which were prompted by reports in the New Republic magazine. "As a company, we're disappointed."

Several publishers said memoirs and books based on recollections pose particular challenges.

Memoirs are generally afforded more artistic license than autobiographies, and their tone and certain details sometimes are based on the reflection and wisdom afforded by time, they said.

"While we conduct peer review on all manuscripts that should detect larger factual problems, memoirs are notoriously difficult to check," said Doug Armato, director of the University of Minnesota Press.

Reunited on blind date

The fact that the Rosenblats' story has been retold several times since the 1990s, was featured twice on Oprah Winfrey's show and carried such emotional weight -- the couple were said to have been reunited on a blind date in New York -- only contributed to people's willingness to believe it, said Adam Lerner, president and publisher of Lerner Publishing Group.

"The story of hope in very, very dire circumstances is very appealing," he said. "I regret it. As a publisher, I very much regret it."

Lerner Publishing Group pulled the $16.95 book off shelves and is offering refunds to any customers who request one.

"I don't know how one really could have fact-checked that" story, said Daniel Slager, publisher of Milkweed Editions, a Minneapolis publisher. "Is that incumbent on the publisher to try to ascertain the truth or falseness of everything in that story? That's a very difficult task. I think it's a little too much to expect."

Historically, publishers haven't fact-checked memoirs because of the subjectivity of the genre and the difficulty of the process, said Ira Wood, former publisher of Leapfrog Press in Massachusetts and co-author of "So You Want To Write," a guide to writing memoirs.

"A memoir is considered a creative riff on someone's life," said Wood, who just completed his own memoir. "You're granted the creative space to embellish from a distance."

While embellished memoirs can be categorized as "autobiographical fiction" or a "memoir novel," Wood and other critics of the Rosenblat case are quick to call the couple out for lying about such a sensitive subject.

"It's a big deal," Wood said, "because there are a lot of people around the world who want to deny the Holocaust, and every time someone ... diverts from the truth it gives more ammunition to these people."

Happiness and hope

Herman Rosenblat has been quoted as saying he fabricated his story because he wanted to bring happiness and hope to people.

Adam Lerner said that when it came to "Angel Girl," the publisher trusted the research conducted by Friedman, who they believe was duped by the Rosenblats. The company, founded in 1959, publishes many non-fiction books that are vetted by academics, he said.

Slager said that for Milkweed's recently published "Shopping for Porcupine," a book about growing up in arctic Alaska by Seth Kantner, the company made sure the timelines made sense. But, Slager said, they didn't check records to determine whether the Kantner family's moves to new states checked out.

One detail seemed impossible to verify: Kantner wrote that he was born in a sod igloo.

"At some point you have to accept or not accept an author's account," Slager said.

Chao Xiong • 612-673-4391