I read an E Weekly review of a memoir over the weekend, and I have to say, I had the same reaction (I’ve since discovered) many other people did – “Huh? Really?” I think in the wake of so many frauds (or accusations of fraud)in the literary world combined with my fervent devotion to The Wire, I found myself a little bit skeptical, especially the part about her birthday party where she got a cake and 9mm. It just seemed too – Hollywood. Unauthentic. A little too perfect. I thought of James Frey, and wondered if someone would discover this author, as he had done, had embellished and overstated the facts. In fact, the author went to a private school in the Valley, and the publisher has withdrawn the book. Do people not realize the truth will out? You can’t pretend to be a foster child from the ghetto, no matter how much you may believe it in your mind, when you’re not.
The reason I’m pulling the comparison to the The Wire is because of the newspaper storyline and the reporter making up quotes, starting a snowball that only grew and grew under the weight of that original, small, golf-ball sized lie. The entire final season of The Wire ended last night, and I watched it, enthralled and hooked, just as I was every season. Only a little sadder, since this was the final episode, the end of it all. The complexity and layers of writing and character development made this one of the greatest shows on television, and while it took some time to get into – several episodes before things felt like they were cohesive – it was a gem in the rubble of our usual entertainment, where all storylines are neatly ordered, the music rises and falls as we expect it to, endings are tidy, and usually, the good guys win. Not so with this show. But oh so brilliant. I can’t wait to watch it all over again, from the very beginning, like a good book, where you catch more of the nuances and see more depth as you read it again. But,(spoiler alert!) there is something to be said for the deliciousness of a first moment that can’t be recreated ever again – when McNulty called bullshit on the reporter, even though it never came back around with consequences for the offender – the moment was there and the fraud was seen for what it was. Absolutely priceless. What was really head-shaking was in the last montage scene, where the guilty reporter helps catapult the paper to award-winning status, and the diligent, hard-working reporter (who didn’t make anything up) gets shunted to the suburban rag. Ain’t that the way it goes…..