A report in the New York Times has raised questions about Amy Griffin’s bestselling memoir, The Tell.
Griffin’s book, published in March by Dial Press, is her account of using MDMA-assisted therapy to recover memories of being sexually assaulted by a teacher when she was in middle school in the late 1980s. A critic for Kirkus called the book “an important, wholly believable account of how long-buried but profoundly formative experiences finally emerge.”
Griffin’s book, buoyed by its selection as an Oprah’s Book Club pick, hit the New York Times bestseller list. It also won praise from celebrities including Today show co-host Jenna Bush Hager, who called the memoir “important and courageous.”
Times reporters Katherine Rosman and Elisabeth Egan write that some sources they interviewed have questioned the accuracy of Griffin’s book. Griffin uses a pseudonym for the teacher she says assaulted her, but the reporters claim they were able to identify him, as were some residents of Amarillo, Texas, where the alleged assaults took place. The teacher, now retired, declined the reporters’ requests for an interview.
Gordon Eatley, an Amarillo police detective, told the Times that he had expected additional complaints against the teacher after the book’s publication but that none materialized. “I’ve worked older cases before,” he said. “You find other people. There is nothing. Zero.”
And a former classmate of Griffin, granted anonymity by the Times, said that she had been assaulted by a teacher at the school—not the man Griffin wrote about—and that Griffin’s descriptions of her alleged assaults were similar to the attacks she had undergone.
Griffin declined to be interviewed by the Times for its story. Her editor at Dial Press, Whitney Frick, told the newspaper, “Book publishers are not investigators. This is Amy’s story. We trust her, and all of our authors, that they are recounting their memories truthfully.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
