An Old Story

Two more memoirs are exposed as fakes. Why do writers do it? For the same reason you do

Susan Seubert / The New York Times

Margaret Seltzer, author of Love and Consequences

A tearful Alan Greenspan confessed yesterday that he never was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, as he alleged in his best-selling autobiography, Irrational Exuberance, published last fall. The book's melodramatic descriptions of gray-haired men sitting around large conference tables talking about things like "libor" and "basis points" were "complete fiction," Greenspan now admits. He said he would return the $8.5 million advance he received from his publisher "just as soon as I can get back to the Fed and print it. Oh, wait. I made that up. I've never been inside the Fed in my life. I guess they're out...

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