Another Brewing Literary Scandal?

Posted on September 27, 2006

Great Britain may have its own James Frey-esque scandal brewing. Bestselling author Kathy O'Beirne is under attack by her own family who says her nonfiction memoir about the author's alleged live of being sexually abused at a Catholic institution for fallen women is total fiction.

At a press conference, seven of Kathy O'Beirne's brothers and sisters read out statements rebutting allegations against their father, who was accused in the book of beating and abusing his daughter.
Ms O'Beirne's bestselling account of her childhood after being placed in the care of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity is a grim catalogue of sexual abuse, beatings and rape. Sold as Don't Ever Tell in Britain and as Kathy's Story in her native Ireland, it appeared two years ago at a time when trust in the Catholic church's clergy and institutions had been shattered after the prosecution of priests for child abuse.
Her description of being handed over to the notorious "Magdalene laundries" - where difficult children were sent - by an abusive father at the age of eight fed public curiosity about life under the punitive regimes supposedly operating behind the walls of so many convents. To date, it has sold 350,000 copies.
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The reason we got together was because of the allegations she was making against our father," Oliver O'Beirne, her eldest brother, told the Guardian yesterday in Dublin. "They are totally untrue. I read her book from beginning to end and wanted to get a pen out and cross out everything that was not true." "I have no recollection at all of her having been in the Magdalene laundries. I did visit her in a children's home, St Anne's in Dublin. It's a messy business. I haven't talked to Kathleen since my father's will seven months ago. She wanted to stay on in the house. The book was total rubbish," he added. "Yes, we got a belt [at home] if we did something wrong; that was normal then. But talk about sexual abuse is absolute rubbish. We were reared to respect others and be courteous to everyone."

Is it another case of an author selling fiction as nonfiction? The author's entire family swears none of the events in the book ever happened. The author swears the events in Don't Ever Tell: Kathy's Story: A True Tale of a Childhood Destroyed by Neglect and Fear are all true.