Dear Oscar,

David Henry Sterry, author of San Francisco Chronicle best-selling memoir Chicken, here. We met at BEA, with Jamie Byng, who published Chicken in the UK, and has sold it into many countries around the world. I was fascinated to see you weigh in on an issue that’s been much in the news lately: the notion of truth and fiction, nonfiction and memoir in modern publishing.
I’ve just finished my next memoir, which Jamie is publishing in the UK in August, and is being published here in the US February of next year, by Morgan Entrekin and Canongate US/Grove Atlantic. It’s called Master of Ceremonies: a True Story of Sex, Murder, Rollerskates and Chippendale’s. It’s about when I was the MC at Chippendale’s in New York City between 1985 and 1987. I worked there when a man named Nick de Noia, the visionary genius behind the Chippendale’s empire, was assassinated. He was my boss, I worked under him, literally, for two years. However, many of the people I worked with at that time, the Chippendale’s dancers, the owners of the nightclub, the DJ, my ex-wife, even Brooke Shields and her mother, who came there to celebrate her 20th birthday, are still alive. To tell the story, I had to include many of these people in my book. And naturally, many of them behave very very badly. So I was faced with a moral and literary dilemma. These people did not choose to write a book. I don’t want to hurt them. Many of them are now married with children. It didn’t seem fair to use their real names, or to make them readily identifiable. So what was I to do?
Then when I turned the manuscript in, it was vetted by many lawyers. My publishers were absolutely, positively terrified of being sued. They told me they wouldn’t publish the book if any of these characters were identifiable to those who knew him intimately. Their lawyers sent me massive e-mails full of legal gobbledygook, then lists of changes that would have to be made so that they would not be liable. Sadly, we live in a litigious society. Everybody’s looking for quick slick buck. Publishers, especially independent ones, have such small profit margins that a lawsuit could very well be crippling. Speaking of crippling, some of these fellows were very dangerous men. Men who could hurt me and mine if I accused them of doing illegal or immoral things. Again, what was I to do?
So in the end I had to blend characters and physical characteristics of the men of Chippendale’s. But I was absolutely scrupulous in reporting events and behavior exactly as they occurred. I did not make up anything in the book. Everything happened exactly as I write that it did. But I went to an enormous amount of trouble to disguise the real identities of these real man. What choice did I have?
In your article today, you wrote, "…there’s no excuse…to create composite characters…in any nonfiction. No excuse, non-. It’s simply dishonest and shows a lack of integrity by the publisher, agent and author."
Is it really your position that I should expose my publisher and myself to bankruptcy and ruin, me and my family to danger and harm, by presenting these characters so that anyone near and dear to them can recognize them? Is it really fair to out these men, many of whom were engaged in frivolous yet shameful acts of youth, and are now solid citizens, with families that would be appalled and horrified if they knew the truth?
Let’s face it, at the end of the day, when all was said and done, in this day and age, a person needs protection. So once again I ask you, what was I to do?
I don’t agree with David Sedaris. I too loved Angela’s Ashes. But it would make a difference to me, if some guy in Montana made the whole thing up. I believe, if you call something nonfiction, you shouldn’t be able to make shit up. If you want to make shit up, you are obliged to call it fiction. People love hearing true stories. There seems to be something about knowing the events actually happened to somebody that makes it more exciting, more authentic. More real. So of course, a story like that is worth more. But to consciously lie to make your story more valuable is, as I see it from my position as a professional memoirist and fiction writer, immoral and wrong.
I thought it might be an interesting for an article, either for me to write, or for you or one of your writers when my book comes out in February of next year. But of course I’m open to suggestion if you have other ideas. Tad Floridis, my editor at Canongate US/Grove Atlantic, said he would speak with you about this at some point in the near future. Thanks, David

David Henry Sterry

David Henry Sterry has written books on many subjects: from sports, to publishing, to himself, to fictitious 13 year-old boys, to pj-party-planning twelve year-old girls. His latest (written under the name Henry Johnson) is the first in the Travis & Freddy series: Travis & Freddy’s Adventures in Vegas (Dutton/Penguin, April, 2006). This was preceded by Putting Your Passion into Print (Workman Publishing, 2005), based on the class he teaches at Stanford University. He is also both writer of and performer in the one-man show “Chicken”, based on his bestselling memoir Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent (ReganBooks/HarperCollins: 2002). Chicken is being made into a film by De Mann Entertainment. His first book was an American Library Association pick-of-the-year, Satchel Sez: The Wit, Wisdom & World of Leroy “Satchel” Paige (Crown/Random House, 2001). In addition he has been contracted to write the follow-up to Chicken by Grove Atlantic/Canongate, Master of Ceremonies: a True Story of Love, Murder and Chippendales. And the second installment of his YA series will come out next year: Travis & Freddy Adventures on a Runaway Train. His story in San Francisco Noir (Akashic, 2005) is a finalist for the Henry Miller Award. His poetry has been published everywhere from Santa Monica Review, to the Hungry Orangutan. He’s also written for, among others, The London Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Penthouse, and The Scotsman. Plays performed at PS 122, the West Bank Café, and the Duplex and wrote screenplays for Disney, Fox, and Nickelodeon Pictures.

David Henry Sterry is also a teacher and a consultant. He’s been teaching writers about publishing with Putting Your Passion Into Print at Stanford for three years, and already five of his students have book deals. PYPIP has now been presented, in various forms, hundreds of times, in colleges, universities, libraries, bookstores and festivals, writer’s workshops, on TV, radio and in print. He’s also taught writing, performing, and creating theater from life, everywhere from Reed College, to University of New Orleans, to the University of Amsterdam; and to teenagers in NYC, SAGE in SF, and for the United States Department of Justice, in Washington, DC. He is also a presentation coach and pitch doctor, working with lawyers, models, architects, actors and writers, helping them present themselves and their ideas with clarity and passion.

David Henry Sterry is also a performer. “Chicken”, the solo show, began at the Marsh Theater in SF, and was named one of the Year’s Best Shows in the SF Chronicle. It premiered internationally at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and was named the UK’s #1 play. He’s performed “Chicken” all over America from Manhattan to Hollywood, and all over the world, from Amsterdam to Australia. As a stand-up comedian, performed with everyone from Robin Williams to Milton Berle. As an actor, worked with everyone from Will Smith to David Letterman to Michael Caine to Zippy the Chimp. He was a TV pitchman for AT&T, Proctor & Gamble, and MacDonald’s, performed in over 750 commercials, winning 4 Clios. Cartoon vocal artist on Denis the Menace and Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Starred in HBO’s Emmy Award-winning Encyclopedia. Emceed at Chippendale’s Male Strip Club in New York.

Been featured in (among others): The New York Times, The London Times, The Sunday Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Details Magazine, BBC Radio, and NPR’s Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and Talk of the Nation. Chicken was published by Canongate in the UK in April, 2003, Dutch (de Kern), German (Rowohlt, 2005), Spanish (Grupo Planeta, 2006), Croatian (Celeber, 2006), and Russia (Red Fish, 2006), and is coming out in Italian (Adelphi, 2007).

He’s worked as a chicken, a chicken fryer, a soda jerk, a cherry picker, a poet, a building inspector, a limo driver, a baby sitter, a barker, and a marriage counselor. He graduated from Reed College, and loves his wife, his cat, and any sport involving a ball.