Jane Daniel

I received a message from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer group that I had not posted my review of Jane Daniel's BESTSELLER!.

Well, yes... I have not written a review to date, because quite frankly I did not like the book.

BESTSELLER! is Jane Daniel's personal account of being sued for $33 million dollars. My opinion is that the writing is choppy and reads like hastily written blog entries tossed together without editting.

Could BESTSELLER! have been a successful story.

YES.

But, only if written by an objective third party who could have told all sides of the story... which is actually quite fascinating:

1. An eccentric elderly woman who not only pretends to be a Jewish Holocaust survivor (unbeknownst to the publisher and ghost writer), but also claims to have survived under the care of wolves. Her story becomes an international bestseller and a successful foreign film. She sues Jane Daniels for millions of dollars because the book does not become a bestseller in the U.S.

2. A friendship that is completely demolished by Daniel's ambition.

3, And most bizarre of all, a $33 million lawsuit against Daniels (the publisher) for failing to successfully promote the fraudulent Holocaust survivor's story.

This would have made one heck of a novel if it had been crafted by an author with the appropriate skills.… (meer)

Jane Daniel’s Bestseller! is – unsurprisingly – one-sided. This is the non-fiction account of a hoax and an obscene amount of money awarded to the perpetrator of that hoax, in a judgement against Daniel, the independent publisher who was to publish Misha Defonseca’s memoir of Holocaust survival.

Only, Misha wasn’t really Misha, but Monique; she didn’t survive the Holocaust by living with wolves but instead was a Belgian scammer with a great con and a knack for getting money by complaining she didn’t have any.

Bestseller! started out quite fascinating, and kept me interested for about the first 40 pages. This is a captivating tale, however, the delivery leaves a lot to be desired. The chapters were originally in a blog format, and while it may have worked very well there (I did not read the blog), it did not translate very well into a book.

I found the book very tedious to read, and this was a double disappointment, since I was initially very interested and anxious to read it. I really wanted to know how the hoax was played out, how it lasted so long and how it impacted on Jane Daniel. I don’t feel satisfied on any of these points.

Once the bones of the narrative were introduced, Daniel began to detail every step in the legal battle. Unless the reader is involved with the legal system, and/or interested in the minutiae of publishing legalities, these 300 plus pages dense with legalese probably will not appeal.… (meer)