The real story behind "Love & Consequences"

The gripping story of a mixed-race foster child growing up with an African American family in gang-ravaged South-Central Los Angeles earned young author Margaret B. Jones rave reviews. Today, an equally gripping story about Jones and her book, “Love & Consequences,” emerged: It was a lie.

The author is white, grew up in Sherman Oaks and is named Margaret Seltzer, according to the New York Times.  Publisher Riverhead Books is recalling the book and scrambling to explain how it was duped.

For whatever reason, I was really torn, and I thought it was my opportunity to put a voice to people who people don’t listen to,” Ms. Seltzer said told the Times. “I was in a position where at one point people said you should speak for us because nobody else is going to let us in to talk. Maybe it’s an ego thing — I don’t know. I just felt that there was good that I could do and there was no other way that someone would listen to it.”

Seltzer's true story began to emerge after the NYT published a feature last week, headlined "A Refugee from Gangland," about the up-and-coming author. Her older sister called the publisher after reading the article and seeing Seltzer’s photo. Publisher Q&A with author.

L.A. Times staff writers Bob Pool and Rebecca Trounson are working on the complete story.

---Jesus Sanchez

Photo: Sol Neelman

Comments

[maureen]

I think you did more damage than good by forsaking your credibility and honesty. How extremely cruel to the people living these lives.

[Sabrina]

This woman is a fraud all the way around. She also lied about going to the University of Oregon. Shame on her.

[Schigolch]

Rigoberta Menchu
James Frey
Margaret Seltzer

Connect the dots: writers win acclaim by slumming for the liberal elite.

[Tee]

The kid got burned. She got sucked in by an agent and a publisher who smelled money and weren't interested in anything as trivial as whether or not the story was true.

You try and say no to nearly $100,000 in advance money while being massaged by people telling you how powerful, how eloquent, your 'story' is.

[tvw]

Valley girl quoted as saying she wrote the book “sitting at the Starbucks at the corner of Crenshaw and Stockyard. People would come in and say, ‘What are you doing?’ because I would be sitting there all day every day. I would talk to kids who were Black Panthers and kids who were gang members and kids who were not gang members.” GIVE ME A BREAK. No such street as "Stockyard", didn't all the Black Panthers die in the 1970s? Yes indeed, all the gangstas just love to hang out at Starbucks and pay $5 for a cup of coffee while they chit chat with white girls typing away on their mac. DISGUSTING. SHAMEFUL. Exploitative to say the least.