INTERVIEWER: Your book has been a sensation. An international bestseller. The subject of several podcasts. It’s being turned into a movie as we speak, there’s a documentary about the whole affair in the works—but what is You Deserve to Know, exactly? Fiction? Memoir?
GUEST: I call it autofiction—personalized reflection based on facts.
INTERVIEWER: The fact is that you had a front-row seat to a horrific crime, or series of crimes I should say, that shook your quiet suburban neighborhood to its core. But what you’ve written is not a piece of journalism, is it?
GUEST: Absolutely not. Autofiction is when an author recounts their life in a fictionalized manner, but modifies significant details and characters, invents subplots, and imagines scenarios with real-life characters in the service of a search for self. Of course, I didn’t witness every scene in the book, and even with as much research as I did, and even though I was there, I am still unable to truly know what other people were thinking. So, no, it’s not journalism and it’s not technically a memoir, but obviously one of the points of view is based on me, and I think that gives it authenticity.
INTERVIEWER: Are you worried readers might think the book is a completely accurate account of what happened?
GUEST: A lot of what happened is available in the court records—like the murders. Some readers will assume that every single word is true. But I caution readers right at the beginning. I’ve changed details here and there and taken poetic license. Still, the essence of the story is true. The court records will back that up.
INTERVIEWER: How do you respond to the criticism that you’ve written yourself as a hero in the story when you were anything but?
GUEST: You Deserve to Know is my version. And I don’t let myself off easy. If you’ve read it, you know what I mean. But everyone is welcome to their own version of the truth. That’s what’s so beautiful about the world today. Everyone has their own truth. What right has anyone to deny mine?
INTERVIEWER: Are you concerned about being liable for defamation?
GUEST: No, this book has been vetted by many lawyers. As you know, the bar for libel when it involves a public figure, or a dead one, is very, very high.
INTERVIEWER: But putting aside the legal issues, what do you have to say to friends, even family members, who feel you’ve exploited their pain and profited off a tragedy by writing a book about them?
GUEST: I’m going to paraphrase one of my favorite writers here, Anne Lamott. She said if you wanted me to write warmly about you, you should have behaved better.