Hi, Since I haven’t read Smashed, I can’t speak to her book. But, for myself, I mainly try not to show anyone in a bad light, especially in terms of friends, husband(s), etc. (In other words, people outside of my parents, I suppose.) The reason why is because my “goal” in writing is to understand people, events, situations, etc., so it’s more of an examination than a pointing of fingers. Even in my first memoir, about the incest, I tried not to write from a place of revenge. Mainly, I wanted to understand how the incest affected me, what it meant—understand all the things I didn’t know growing up. I've always felt that writing from a place of revenge (or ONLY anger) would limit my work, emotionally. And in "Love Sick," I actually feel that I’m probably harder on myself than I am on anyone else.

But, having said that, I did change my friends’ names in both of my books in order to protect their privacy. In “Terror, Father,” though, I use the real names of my husband and therapist, though in “Love Sick,” my publisher, Norton, “made” me change both their names—even though I’d used their real names in the first book. In short, Norton was nervous about lawsuits, though I actually never worried at all that anyone would sue me.

In these kinds of cases, a lawsuit, by the way, would usually be invasion of privacy rather than libel, which, I’ve heard, is much more difficult to prove.

To try to prevent lawsuits, though, many authors do change friends’ names and use composite characters in protect privacy. I wonder if the author of Smashed did this or not? Do you know?

But, we’re such a lawsuit happy country you can never entirely protect yourself. Novelists are sued, too. I usually suggest to students that they need to find their own comfort level in terms of what to reveal and what not. And, of course, hope for the best! But, having said this, I honestly don't think there are that many lawsuits around memoirists and invasion of privacy. I mean when you think of how many memoirs have been published in the last few years. Sue