Perhaps you are one of the thousands of readers who helped put "Kabul Beauty School" (Random House, $24.95) on the best-seller list. If so, you formed your own opinion of the memoir at the time you read it.
But did you have any reservations about the author before last week?
I did. I wondered how much of the book was written by the beautician/author, Deborah Rodriguez. When the title page says "with" someone (in this case "with Kristin Ohlson") I always wonder how much was written by the person whose name is in the small type.
You may also have wondered what Rodriguez was paid, and by whom, to run the beauty school. We've all read news reports about reconstruction funds going astray in war-ravaged countries. So a lot of readers of "Kabul Beauty School" may have found themselves thinking there was another side to the story when Rodriguez had trouble with funding and changed the location of the school.
In spite of these reservations, I kept on reading. I figured I won't get to Kabul any time soon and I was fascinated by Rodriguez's descriptions of the lives of the women there, women newly freed from Taliban rule.
I believed Rodriguez was faithful in describing the lives of her students in Kabul. I bet most readers believed those descriptions of the downtrodden women — all of whom seemed to be trapped in unhappy relationships.
My reasoning went like this, Rodriguez was so frank about the ups and downs in her own marriage: She wed an Afghani she barely knew, a man who already had a wife and seven children in Saudi Arabia. She thought he didn't love his first wife and felt betrayed when the wife became pregnant with an eighth baby.
Because Rodriguez was so forthcoming about her own problems, it seemed quite likely the students she worked with would be forthcoming with her about their marital woes.
I felt duped when I read the article about "Kabul Beauty School" in the New York Times last Sunday. According to the Times, six women who helped to found the school take issue with the book, and "they even question whether the stories Ms. Rodriguez tells about Afghan women — disturbing, heartbreaking tales of abuse — are real."
Most frustrating for this reader is not the Times' report about the controversy over who started the school and whether Rodriguez should profit from the school's salon. Most frustrating is the implication that the newly trained Afghan beauticians may not be in the dire straits Rodriguez described.
I would have preferred an accurate account of the lives of women in Afghanistan. I would have been happy enough to think these women would soon be able to earn a living. I didn't need to think they were miserably married, as well as poor, if they weren't.
"It's a shame," says Dawn Thurston, who teaches memoir writing at the University of Utah and also at a community college in California. Thurston hadn't read the book or the Times' story and didn't have a feel for the accuracy of "Kabul Beauty School." But when there are inaccuracies, she said, they will almost always come back to bite the author.
Liberties with the facts can be handled quite easily, Thurston adds. "There are different kinds of memoirs. You can say, 'This was based on the truth."'
As it is, Random House includes a disclaimer on the title page. "Kabul Beauty School is a work of nonfiction. Although all events depicted herein did occur, some personal names, place names, and the names of some organizations have been changed. Some chronological details have been adjusted as well."
The fact that six women have told reporters Rodriguez fabricated at least one of her main characters is disappointing — but also intriguing. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the New York Times made an effort to sort it all out? And if they did spend the money to send a reporter to interview Rodriguez's former students, maybe the reporter could interview her husband as well. And the first wife.
Speaking for the readers who helped vault this book to the best-seller list: We'd love to know more. We'd love to know the truth.
E-mail: susan@desnews.com