Lee ISRAEL fancies herself a rather gifted fabulist. Federal prosecutors in New York disagreed. Not known for their tact, they called her a thief. A judge agreed, so now Israel is a felon. But nobody has ever accused her of being boring.
"Can You Ever Forgive Me? Memoirs of a Literary Forger" chronicles Israel's harrowing descent from legitimate writer to low-rent crook. In the early 1990s, the author of well-regarded but commercially unsuccessful biographies of Tallulah Bankhead and Estee Lauder found herself adrift in her Upper West Side apartment, broke, unable to pay her significant bar tab or land a new book contract.
"I was imprudent with money and Dionysian to the quick," she confesses, though not with a great deal of shame. Salving her disappointments with hate-filled anonymous calls to former colleagues, Israel cast about unsuccessfully for a suitable book subject, preferably someone famous or infamous enough to attract a hefty advance.
Women of greater strength -- Israel would say of lesser ingenuity -- might have taken a job outside the glittering world of letters. But mundane work held no appeal to a woman of Israel's delicate artistic sensibility. She turned to crime instead.
Israel had what was, for her, an original thought. While writing about famous people was a time-consuming process with uncertain returns, selling the writings of famous people meant quick, easy cash: "Thinking of celebrity letters as salable things rather than primary sources of information was new to me." But, bless her heart, she took to it like a duck to water.
In just two years, Israel says she forged and sold approximately 400 letters purported to have been written by literary figures including Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker. When an unwitting buyer mentioned that better content produced higher prices, Israel was inspired. Freed from the burden of integrity, relieved of her obligation to accuracy, Israel let her imagination run wild.
"I have a hangover out of Gounod's 'Faust' " Israel has Parker write in one forgery, a bit over the top, perhaps, but memorable. Dropping references to Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio and the Kennedys in a forged letter from Louise Brooks proved money in the bank. Coward writing that he looked forward to seeing Marlene Dietrich because the "canny old Kraut remains one of my most cherished friends" should have struck someone as too good to be true. It didn't.
