OOPS, THEY'VE DONE IT AGAIN. Yet another writer of memoir has turned out to be a teller of what, in literary circles, are sometimes referred to as porky pies. Love and Consequences, just published (and now recalled) in the States, was, in theory, Margaret B. Jones's harrowing account of growing up as a mixed-race girl raised in a foster family in the scary 'hood of South Central LA. Alas, Miss Jones turns out to be Miss Seltzer, who grew up with her biological Caucasian family in wealthy Sherman Oaks and went to private school. Like I said: oops.

The publisher was apparently able to work on the book with Seltzer for three years and never discern the truth; the author was, in the end, shopped by her sister (ouch!) when she saw an article on “Jones” in The New York Times and revealed all. Once again: oops.

It would be possible to draw all sorts of conclusions from this sorry tale. I am, I suppose, frankly amazed and not a little in awe of someone who was, apparently, able to keep up a consistent front to her publishers for so long; and yet I can also imagine that her publishers (Riverhead Books, part of the Penguin Group in the USA) were - as has, we know, often happened before - blinded by their desire for Real, True, Actual, Honest-to-Goodness Pain.

Yes, I know. They call it the literature of “inspiration” (learn from my struggle!) but I think it's something else. Here they come, the Misery Memoirs, the stories of drug addiction, alcoholism, violence, abuse. We can't get enough of them; so much so that, in my personal encounters with publishers, I'm often struck that they sometimes seem embarrassed by the number of these books they have on their, well, books; but who can blame them? They leap off the shelves.

Novels, as we know, do not leap off the shelves; at least not at the same rate - and, novels by rich white girls about poor mixed-race girls are not considered exactly politically correct. So we are in a double bind: we despise the infinite possibilities of fiction, and we allow only certain types of people to tell certain types of stories. And yet the human mind - as Jeanette Winterson says in a different way - is freed by the imagination. Our ability to invent is what enables us, it seems to me, also to imagine what possibilities might exist in the more concrete world around us. Change happens first in our minds, in our conjuring of what is rich and strange.

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• The Sunday Times 100 best holiday reads
• What will we be reading this summer: the booksellers predict
• Literary festivals: a survivor’s guide