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On Lying
I have made an almighty balls up with my deceit in the Guardian piece refered to in today’s G2. There is no excuse for it – I’ve tried to explain it, but even to me it does not make a great deal of sense. One of the most important things I learned in prison was that you cannot beat the truth. It is like a solid rock foundation of civilisation. All the greatest and most influential people throughout history, the people that have really shaped our world, from Socrates to Obama, have been men of truth. I am sorry I lied for such dubious reasons, sorry to have let so many people down. I’ve always struggled with this new existence – never planned it that’s for sure. Just wanted to be a writer. So very sorry to have offended.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Having just read your article in todays Guardian I can only say, please don’t beat yourself up about your previous free use of the truth, at the time you wrote it seemed the right thing to do, you had so much else going on in your head. for the time you wrote your previous version of events you were still hiding from your own self, you haven’t let me down as a reader, in fact your new honesty draws one closer I hope, gaining new insight of your writing a little more.. you’re a terrific writer and hope you continue to explore your talent with words, take care, Lee
April 24th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
A very moving and thoughtful piece. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
No offence was taken. Your reasons for concealing the truth were justified. Your articles on life in prisons have already achieved much, and will continue to inform and educate. Enjoyed”The Real Me” in the Guardian today,24th April. One always felt you were holding a bit of your self back. Hope the “coming out” is cathartic, and you are accepted for the sensitive and unique person you are now. How many of us could have overcome the disadavantages you did? Very few I would think. Good luck.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Best of luck. Have read much of your work and enjoyed it a lot. Go easy on yourself.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I’m not a habitual internet-poster but your piece in today’s G2 was so heart-breaking, and must have been so difficult to write, that I felt I had to send you a message of support. I don’t understand what is so heinous about your literary offence that you have been forced into a mea culpa in the first place. You are a writer for god’s sake – and there isn’t a writer in the world who doesn’t make use of artistic licence in order to expose existential truths. Who cares whether it was 1982 or 1983? And whether you were there or not? Or even whether you were in the bloody foreign legion at all? I’ve always just been incredibly grateful for your courage in writing anything that even remotely touches on the very edge of the truth -lone voices in the wilderness are so very few and far between. And amongst all the self-regarding claptrap that fills the pages of the Guardian (none of the other columnists have ever embellished anything of course!) your journalism has always stood out like a pearl. So thank you.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I have always enjoyed your writing and admired the way you have come to terms with your past. For me this is a small lapse the reasons for which are understandable. Don’t beat yourself up too much about it.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
in the grand scheme of things erwin, it’s no big deal. i’m guessing you’re busting your balls more than anyone else is / is going to.
i’ve enjoyed your writing over the years and hope to see more it.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Read your piece in The Guardian today with great interest. I doubt that Erwin James and James Monahan could have been kept apart indefinitely. One way of interpreting – not rationalising, or excusing – the deception you refer to is as an attempt to stave off the inevitable. It /is/ a balls-up, but not quite an almighty one. You haven’t done a James Frey. Finally, as you – and Vonnegut, and Lee Stringer, and others – well know, there is no such thing as ‘just’ being a writer.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Jesus man, give yourself a break. You’re only human and the odd balls up is inevitable. You’re actually an inspiration. Keep on, keeping on xx
April 25th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
To echo what everyone else has said, I don’t think that most people who, like me, have been following your columns and articles in the Guardian over some years, will feel let down that you blurred the truth to try and keep your identity from being exposed. If you made a mistake, it was perhaps not asking the Guardian for advice as to how you could change identifying details without distorting the truth. But most other of us imperfect human beings will understand why you did it.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Perhaps you wanted to ditch Erwin James and introduce James Monahon for a long time. This was the only way you could make it happen.
The essence of the accounts you gave of your time in the Legion was true – playing with the dates and stating that you were on tours that took place during those dates was unfortunate. If you had claimed any heroics or traumatic experiences during those ops you would be a liar and a conman; tinkering with a story a little to protect your identity does not make you a fraud.
You have led an extremely intense and unusual life that has taken you to some brutal extremes – It’s hardly surprising that you are still trying to process these experiences. Keep on writing.
Tous mes fautes je les ai expiées……
April 27th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Erwin i hope this quote helps gandhi said “my imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from god as my successes and my talents and i lay them both at his feet”
in friendship
charlie
April 28th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Erwin,
I came across your story just now, through a piece in a Greek newspaper about a lifer being a Guardian columnist. I turned to your site for more information and learned about your books, which reminded me of a book I read almost 15 years ago, by an American convict with a life story similar to yours, a book that marked my thinking as a -then- young law school student , as well as shaped my sensitivity on social issues.
I look forward to reading your books and feel the need to state my admiration for your feat of endurance and self transformation, in spite of the usual role of the institution you were – not inadvertenly in your case – processed through.
As far as the issue of the “deception” is concerned, I really fail to see what the fuss is about. All that appears to have been at stake was the self-inflated ego of some “bloggers” that made it their task to find out your true identity. Strike that, I meant to write “your true name”, cause your identity is patently clear from what you do in your life and write in your column.
Thank you for a great, uplifting, hope-in-the-nature-of-man-restoring life history.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I have read your article together with inmates here in Skien prison/Norway, and we appreciate it a lot. Thanks for your encouraging books and articles!! We have been talking together and reflecting on your G2-article. Thanks for your good intentions and the way you write about prison life and prison politics!
April 29th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Thanks for your thoughtful pieces in the Guardian.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:12 am
I hope you will take heart from the generally positive response to ‘The Real Me’, Erwin.Like many others, my own reaction was ‘What on earth is all the fuss about?’In decades of conducting research with prisoners and ex-prisoners, I have always been at great pains to disguise the identity of those I was writing about since I know only too well what damage is done to their rehabilitation prospects if the tabloid press and others with dubious motives manage to track them and their families down.You had every right to thus protect yourself. It was entirely apparent that the essence of what you wrote was truthful, and which of us is ever sqeaky clean in this respect anyway? While I’m pleased that the Guardian should have continued to support you and your outstanding writing, I was amazed that the Readers’ Editor should write ‘He has caused damage to the reputation of the Guardian and given some people reason to doubt his work. He will have to re-earn their trust.’ Well no you haven’t and no you won’t as far as most of us are concerned. You climbed so many mountains in prison – this is just an annoying little hillock, so give it a kick and stride on. The good wishes of the vast majority of your readers will go with you.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I can only hope that this is another chapter in your life which you will deal with the great courage you have shown all your life. You committed a crime you went to prison you bettered yourself and you deserve to live a good life. And those of us who have so enjoyed your writings understand and are still here. And will be.
April 30th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Yes you are being too hard on yourself, I can understand why you did what you did, and as far as I am concerned you did not lie about the substance and that’s why I don’t feel betrayed or that you did anything morally wrong.
Erwin or James I should say, you have been an inspiration in our house for years. My now grown-up (ish) son loved your column and book, we all did. Talking of morals, you are one of the very few moral compasses in the Grauniad or anywhere is the media.
Keep up the good work, please please\ please do not allow yourself to sabotage what you ahve achieved by catastrophising something which isn’t a catastrophe!
April 30th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Just want to wish you well and say keep up the good work, both in speaking out and campaigning on prison reform and perhaps more importantly living your life in the most appropriate way that your conscience dictates. You’ve come a long way and have no doubt been an inspiration to many. However you should not feel obliged to always have to try and please everyone else. You’ve certainly paid back any debt to society and you have earned the right to determine your own destiny.
Chin up, eyes to the front, keep marching !
May 6th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I’ve just found this blog, and incidentally the April 24 article in the Guardian as a result of cracking open The Home Stretch finally. Until 2004, when I emigrated from the UK, I used to read your Guardian column every two weeks; in fact, it was the first thing I looked for in G2. I found it – as no doubt many people have said to you – brutally frank while at the same time humour-laden, as well as eye-opening. It performed – and still performs, in the shape of your books and talks – a huge public service. One of the columns that struck me most was Freedom, he wrote, where you talked about your education and the long struggle to improve yourself, and finally how you came to be a columnist while still in the closed system. You have a gift with words, undoubtedly, but that’s not all it is: it’s a talent for choosing the right words on the important issues, and saying things that for too long those with a voice in society have failed to say.
It says much about the authenticity of your work that your supporters include people such as Martin Narey and Jonathan Aiken.
Sure, the necessary obfuscation – necessary to continue to conceal your true identity and to protect others – in the Legion article could have been better done. I’m sure you’ve been through all the many ways this could have been done; you don’t need anonymous readers who are complete strangers doing that for you. What speaks loudest to me is the public support you have received from the Guardian to your confession. From the newspaper’s website, it appears that you’re still writing for them – and any decision otherwise would, in my mind and in that of your many readers, be a huge mistake.
Keep writing, and keep inspiring those still in the prison system to reach inside themselves and find what’s good about them – and telling the rest of us how we can do things better.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I love your work. I am glad you have clarified things, it gives greater context.
I think your interpretation of your responsibility for your murders, whilst profoundly serious, is inaccurate and if we are to make progress in society, needs to be challenged. I think you, and your victims, are BOTH victims of your circumstances and society’s inability to address them.
In some ways, we have amazing “technology” at our disposal today – for instance in medicine, defence and entertainment, but the “technology of reform” is underdeveloped and under-resourced.
I wrote to you a few months back asking how to get involved in making this happen, you wrote back briefly with the promise of a reply, but then vanished.
Keep up the good work.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Like other posters here, Erwin/James, I have admired your writing for years. This was a small scale deception for good reasons – I think I would have done it myself! It is relatively small beer – now, if you were banker, maybe some major contrition might be appropriate.
As others have said, don’t berate yourself, move on, keep up the super work, and have the good life that you clearly deserve. I look forward to reading your work for years to come.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
You are a tremendously inspirational writer, a reminder that we always take control of our lives, no matter how awful our mistakes. I agree with the other posters on being tough on yourself, though of course being tough on yourself is also what has helped you.
Best wishes – I really look forward to reading more of your writing
Brian
June 25th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Hi
I have long-admired both your writing and how you have turned your life around. Please don’t feel bad.
I look forward to your next book.
Lesley
August 11th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Writers lie all the time. You are rare among the species to have owned up. Good on you Erwin!