Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Memoirs of a Literary Forger

By Lee Israel

Now a major motion picture starring Melissa McCarthy—Lee Israel’s hilarious and shocking memoir of the astonishing caper she carried on for almost two years when she forged and sold more than three hundred letters by such literary notables as Dorothy Parker, Edna Ferber, Noel Coward, and many others.

Before turning to her life of crime—running a one-woman forgery business out of a phone booth in a Greenwich Village bar and even dodging the FBI—Lee Israel had a legitimate career as an author of biographies. Her first book on Tallulah Bankhead was a New York Times bestseller, and her second, on the late journalist and reporter Dorothy Kilgallen, made a splash in the headlines.

But by 1990, almost broke and desperate to hang onto her Upper West Side studio, Lee made a bold and irreversible career change: inspired by a letter she’d received once from Katharine Hepburn, and armed with her considerable skills as a researcher and celebrity biographer, she began to forge letters in the voices of literary greats. Between 1990 and 1991, she wrote more than three hundred letters in the voices of, among others, Dorothy Parker, Louise Brooks, Edna Ferber, Lillian Hellman, and Noel Coward—and sold the forgeries to memorabilia and autograph dealers.

“Lee Israel is deft, funny, and eminently entertaining…[in her] gentle parable about the modern culture of fame, about those who worship it, those who strive for it, and those who trade in its relics” (The Associated Press). Exquisitely written, with reproductions of her marvelous forgeries, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is “a slender, sordid, and pretty damned fabulous book about her misadventures” (The New York Times Book Review).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Sep 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781982117603

Lee Israel

Lee Israel was the author of Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Estee Lauder: Beyond the Magic, Kilgallen, and Miss Tallulah Bankhead. She also worked as a copyeditor for Scholastic and American Express Publishing. She died in 2015.

Reviews for Can You Ever Forgive Me?

[hemphill_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting and at points hilarious, but her voice really pains me--snobby, bitchy, privileged. However, she led a fascinating life and I'm glad I had a chance to see part of it through this book.

[stephaniechase_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Israel is incredibly entertaining in this slim memoir -- funny, insightful, and absolutely unapologetic. I recommended this to one of my favorite library patrons, a very discriminating reader, and he enjoyed it so much, he bought some as gifts. Those unfamiliar with the authors whose letters Israel forged will find the story interesting, but it is truly wonderful when you can appreciate her gift.

[emscape · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

No. No, I cannot. Not cool, Lee Israel. Lee was poor so she faked correspondence between famous people and other people. She got caught and now she's poor again so she writes a memoir. She tries to pretend to be reformed and Sorry, but she's not and you can tell by how gleefully she relishes her tale and how super clever and talented she still thinks she is. Ick.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It is noticeable that this is titled memoirs of a lterary forger, rather than confessions. And that sets the tone of the piece. It is an odd combination of misery memior about her descent from making a living as an author to being broke enough to consider forgery. Then there is a sense of bragging about the letters she forged, which are quoted extensively, and how those who she fooled were clearly schmucks who deserved it. There's some interesting detail about watermarks and typewriters and the mechanics of the process, and that for me was the most interesting. The rest of it was a puff piece and overly full of padding. The author sounds unpleasant and unrepentant and I can't say I feel at all sorry for her and her self-inflicted predicament.The title is taken form a phrase she put into the Dorothy Parker letter and not a sense of the author's repentance for her crime.

[janzz_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I found it not overly interesting. It seemed almost as though she was bragging about what she had done. If it was me I would be wanting to keep it quiet.

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Down-on-her-luck celebrity biographer Lee Israel came up with a money making scheme that both stretched her creativity and got her in trouble with the FBI. Using both her literary gifts and her research skills, she forged autographed letters supposedly written by twentieth century luminaries such as Dorothy Parker, Edna Ferber, and Noel Coward, and sold them to brokers, who in turn sold them to collectors. Two of her Noel Coward forgeries even ended up in a book of the composer's collected correspondence. As her involvement in her crimes deepened, she even stole materials from archives and academic libraries.Eventually Israel had to face the music, but I don't have the impression that her conscience bothered her very much. She seems to have fancied herself as a folk anti-heroine, like Bonnie of Bonnie and Clyde.This witty memoir, which can be read in about an hour, provides an interesting look at an uncommon crime.

[yukon92 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book might actually be the rare case where the movie might be better than the book!

[villemezbrown · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This sketch of a book amounts to little more than a magazine article about Israel's career as a thief and forger. To fill it out, she includes multiple examples of the fake letters she created, pointing out which bits were hers and which came from the famous people she was aping. She is obviously proud of her work and generally seems unrepentant.But her fuck 'em attitude and snark kept me reading even as it repelled me. Looking forward to seeing the movie now.

[bostonbibliophile · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you've seen the movie you can more or less skip the memoir but it's interesting if you want to see how true to life the movie was. The movie is a bittersweet delight thanks to the actors; the story as recounted in the book is tawdry and cheap. Israel's tone is matter of fact and even a little defiant; she comes across as largely unsympathetic although her writing is crisp and skillful. So if you're thinking about choosing, I would pick the movie, as the book is a largely unpleasant experience.