Autobiographical impostures, once they come to light, appear to us as
outrageous, scandalous. They confuse lived and textual identity (the
person in the world and the character in the text) and call into
question what we believe, what we doubt, and how we receive information.
In the process, they tell us a lot about cultural norms and anxieties.
Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography examines
a broad range of impostures in the United States, Canada, and Europe,
and asks about each one: Why this particular imposture? Why here and
now?
Susanna Egan's historical survey of texts from early Christendom to the
nineteenth century provides an understanding of the author in relation
to the text and shows how plagiarism and other false claims have not
always been regarded as the frauds we consider them today. She then
explores the role of the media in the creation of much contemporary
imposture, examining in particular the cases of Jumana Hanna, Norma
Khouri, and James Frey. The book also addresses ethnic imposture,
deliberate fictions, plagiarism, and ghostwriting, all of which raise
moral, legal, historical, and cultural issues. Egan concludes the volume
with an examination of how historiography and law failed to support the
identities of European Jews during World War II, creating sufficient
instability in Jewish identity and doubt about Jewish wartime experience
that the impostor could step in. This textual erasure of the Jews of
Europe and the refashioning of their experiences in fraudulent texts are
examples of imposture as an outcrop of extreme identity crisis.
The first to examine these issues in North America and Europe, Burdens
of Proof will be of interest to scholars of life writing and cultural
studies.
