Margaret Seltzer is an American writer. Her first book, Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival , about her alleged experiences growing up as a half white

White people

White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

, half Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

  foster child

Foster Child

Foster Child is a 1987 documentary film by Gil Cardinal, exploring the filmmaker's search, at age thirty-five, for biological family. Cardinal often meets with frustration during his search, but eventually finds his natural family and discovers his Métis roots.This National Film Board of Canada...

 and Bloods

Bloods

The Bloods are a street gang founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. They are identified by the red color worn by their members and by particular gang symbols, including distinctive hand signs...

 gang member in South Central Los Angeles

South Los Angeles

South Los Angeles, often abbreviated as South L.A. and formerly South Central Los Angeles, is the official name for a large geographic and cultural portion lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central, and is still widely known...

, was proven to be fictitious. She actually was fully white, grew up with her biological parents in the upscale San Fernando Valley

San Fernando Valley

The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...

 community of Sherman Oaks and attended Campbell Hall

Campbell Hall School

Campbell Hall School is an independent, coeducational, K-12 Episcopal day school located in Studio City, California, United States. Founded in 1944 by the Reverend Alexander Campbell, Campbell Hall School is home to approximately 1,000 students from kindergarten through high school. Campbell Hall...

, an affluent Episcopalian day school

Day school

A day school—as opposed to a boarding school—is an institution where children are given educational instruction during the day and after which children/teens return to their homes...

 in the North Hollywood area of Los Angeles.

While promoting the book in radio interviews with WBUR

WBUR

WBUR refers to two radio stations in Massachusetts, WBUR AM and FM, both owned by Boston University. WBUR is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, Massachusetts, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM, and the only one to focus exclusively on news and talk...

's On Point

On Point

On Point is a two-hour call-in radio show hosted by Tom Ashbrook, a former The Boston Globe foreign editor and reporter, author and Internet entrepreneur. It is produced by WBUR in Boston and syndicated by National Public Radio...

and NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

's Tell Me More

Tell Me More

Tell Me More is a National Public Radio daytime interview show hosted by journalist Michel Martin. Tell Me More was first introduced in a novel way; it was made available online in December 2006 through an "open piloting" program called "Rough Cuts." Martin and the show's producers provided a...

, Seltzer spoke with an African American Vernacular

African American Vernacular English

African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...

 dialect and frequently referred to alleged gang friends as "homie

Homie

Homie or homey is a slang term in urban culture whose origins etymologists generally trace to African American language from the late 19th century. This was a time when many African Americans were migrating to cities in larger numbers, and "homeboy" meant a male friend from back home. It was...

s" and "my home girl."

Prior to being exposed as fabricated, the book was praised as "humane and deeply affecting" by Michiko Kakutani

Michiko Kakutani

is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times and is considered by many to be a leading literary critic in the United States.-Life and career:...

 of the New York Times.

Book withdrawn

The book's publisher, Riverhead Books

Riverhead Books

Riverhead Books is a division of Penguin Group .Notable books and major bestsellers published by Riverhead include Journals by Kurt Cobain; The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama; The Color of Water by James McBride; Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft by Chang-rae Lee; Fever...

, has recalled all copies of the book and audiobook from booksellers, Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 and Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...

 have pulled the purchase page for the book from both of their sites, and Riverhead has offered refunds to those who purchased it. The hoax was discovered when the publisher was contacted by Seltzer's own sister.

Seltzer currently lives in Eugene, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon

Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...

.