The Salt Path Lies: Does Non Fiction Need to be True?

[Hayley]

I never got round to reading The Salt Path, but I've read so much about it since it came out that I sort of feel like I have! It sounded really lovely - a properly hopeful and inspirational story of a couple defeating the odds and the unfairness of modern life by embracing nature. It also sounded incredibly tragic. Not only did the couple lose their home (them hiding from bailiffs was in one of the extracts I read), the husband was suffering from a rare incurable illness. 

Now, just as a movie based on the book is out, an article in the Observer seems to prove that a lot of the story was a lie. Or, at least, a pretty significant exaggeration of the truth.

I thought it was interesting to see how people reacted to the news. Most comments I saw were angry - people felt like they'd been tricked and the meaning of the story was ruined by it not being genuine. But a few people did still think they found value in it, despite it being a little sad that it wasn't real. 

My first thought was 'how did they get away with it?'. The Salt Path was only the first book - but nobody ever checked that the stories were actually true? But then, when it comes to someone's life experience, how could you really check that it's true? How many non-fiction books aren't actually that factual after all? And should there be room for exaggeration (or lies) if it's in the interest of portraying the message of the book better? 

 

Interested to see what others think of this. The article is here, if you haven't seen it: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ... 

[lunababymoonchild]

I’ve seen these reports too. I haven’t read the book either but have to say that if I had I’d be disappointed to find that it was substantially untrue, so yes, I do think that non-fiction should be true as far as possible

[Madeleine]

Yes it should be as true to life as possible, but I do wonder what took them so long to make these accusations, she's written several more books since The Salt Path, and I think has another one due out soon, they're now walking the Thames Path apparently.

[Hayley]

23 hours ago, Madeleine said:

Yes it should be as true to life as possible, but I do wonder what took them so long to make these accusations, she's written several more books since The Salt Path, and I think has another one due out soon, they're now walking the Thames Path apparently.

I thought that too! It does seem timed for maximum damage/ attention, with the movie having recently released. I guess that could be why. I did notice a smaller article (I can't remember where now) which said that the publisher refused to comment on whether the new book would still be released (although that could just mean they didn't want to talk to the journalist). 

Apparently if you look at lower-rated reviews of the book, people had questioned the honesty of it before, especially when it came to the illness Moth was supposed to have.

[France]

I suspect that the accusations have been going around for some time but people either didn't want to believe them or decided that they could be brushed under the carpet.  And of course the paper had to be absolutely certain that they had all their facts before they published anything.

 

[KEV67]

I had not heard of The Salt Path, but it would not be the first biography or autobiography to turn out to be, at least partially, fictionalised. I seem to remember Papillion was suspected of not being entirely true. I have just finished Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, in which Jeanette Winterson says in the introduction that it is not a wholly factual account, and, in the story, muses what is truth, fact and history anyway.  Laurie Lee was accused of jazzing up his memoirs a bit when it came to his participation in the Spanish Civil War. It did not help that someone stole the diaries he was going to work from. Clive James' memoirs are called Unreliable Memoirs.  They are entertaining, but they are his life as he remembers it. I am sure there are books that are presented as real people's memoirs that are total fiction. I think W.M. Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon was one of these.

[Hayley]

There was an interesting follow-up to this story in the Guardian. It seems that quite a few people who were featured in the book (or whose businesses were featured in it) claim the author lied to paint them in a negative light, while portraying themselves as victims. The evidence seems pretty damning. They included details that couldn't possibly be true and would be easy to prove wrong. Honestly, that really pushes it far into 'this is morally wrong' to me. They could have badly affected the reputation of these people and their businesses. (Article is here, if you're interested: The Salt Path: portrayals that left a sour taste ). 

 

On 7/11/2025 at 5:51 PM, KEV67 said:

I have just finished Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, in which Jeanette Winterson says in the introduction that it is not a wholly factual account, and, in the story, muses what is truth, fact and history anyway.  Laurie Lee was accused of jazzing up his memoirs a bit when it came to his participation in the Spanish Civil War. It did not help that someone stole the diaries he was going to work from.

I do think it's different if the author says from the start that it isn't entirely factual - or even if they admit that they added things because they could no longer recall specific details. That isn't really deceptive, so I think it's fair.