Monty Roberts Dupes News Media and Publishers

By JOHN DOLAN
Special to USA Views

Nov. 6, 1999
There’s a horse trainer named Monty Roberts who seemingly took the United States by storm a couple of years ago. He’s a best-selling author of his book “The Man Who Listens to Horses”, the tale of his tortured childhood, his prowess with horses, his recognition by the Queen of England. Great story telling.

After the book was published by Random House, it was everywhere and so was Monty Roberts, on television, on radio, crying his tales of childhood abuses at the hands of his father, giving fancy training demonstrations called “Join-Up” using the “language of Equus”, along with other long-known methods that only he, it seems, could promote in his uniquely charismatic manner. He became the latest cult figure to the masses of horse people around the world. His book is translated in a slew of languages and he still makes jaunts to the Queen’s hangout. Monty Roberts became in many people’s eyes the savior of all horses from various abuses and misguided training methods. He made it sound as if no other trainer on the face of the earth ever promoted good will and common sense to equines.

Then from the bowels of his past, came family members with their own tales of Monty’s childhood. These tales weren’t so dramatic: no abuse at the hands of his father, no complicity by a lax mother, no great film career or friendship with James Dean. Little by little they whittled down Monty’s great manhood to a series of lies, deceits and abuses, not to him, but by him.

But where was the news media? Why didn’t Random House or another large entity publish “Horse Whispers & Lies”, the book that counters Monty Roberts’ own? Where were the television cameras, the top reporters from NBC’s “Dateline”? Where was the Los Angeles Times? Only “Horse & Rider” magazine and TIME had the gumption to publish an article unfavorable to him – although it must be said that TIME’s article was a mere shadow of revelations to come. Why was no one interviewing the scores of people who spoke against Monty Roberts?

Monty Roberts’ public relations person did an amazingly good job getting him to be seen and heard around the world. The truth, however, had no public relations person, so the media just ignored the controversy that’s been brewing for well over a year. The media has ignored the three major lawsuits surrounding Monty Roberts. And, since one of the lawsuits against him has been settled out of court, and another on its way to the same conclusion, it only ensures that the public will never know the extent of the evidence against him. One other lawsuit that this author knows of remains outstanding until March of next year. I will not place any bets on the winner but will only say that Monty Roberts is rich and the plaintiffs are poor. Who do you think has more funds to hire top notch, albeit sleazy lawyers who will do everything in their power to protect Monty Roberts’ bad name?

Where are the news honchos protecting the public’s right to know? They’re still kneeling at the altar of the man who only thinks he listens to horses.  For more literary scams about author fraud visit AllForums.com

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Truth or Fiction: Does Anyone Know The Difference Anymore?

It has to be related to television and the movies and even computer and video games. All that ‘virtual reality’ has people not knowing the difference between fact and fiction. Each new generation becomes further removed from the realities of life in general. Television shows and films take great license in portraying true events. What that really means is that a mere kernel, the gist of an idea or story, was based on a true event. Anything after that is complete fiction. But, people take it as a true story, nonetheless.

Apparently the same thing is happening in the book world too. Someone wants to write an autobiography, but guess what? The facts just aren’t that interesting, after all. And publishers want extraordinarily interesting personal stories that will sell well.

Monty Roberts, the so-called ‘horse whisperer’ who wrote what became a national best-seller called “The Man Who Listens to Horses” sits accused of writing reams and reams of fiction and passing it off as truth. Read another book, “Horse Whispers and Lies” by Debra Ann Ristau and Joyce Renebome, and you’ll get a whiff of the kinds and numbers of untruths that graced Mr. Roberts’ book. They are mammoth in nature.

In trying to cover his tracks, Mr. Roberts has alternately stuck by his stories, or changed certain names and events to jive with disputed facts. Some facts, for example, facts differ between his book published in America and the one published overseas. The disputed details surfacing in “Horse Whispers and Lies”, however, are so numerous that one must believe that the only thing true about Monty Roberts’ writings about himself are that he was born, he rode and trained horses, he had some dealings with the Queen of England and that he is now lucky enough to own a very lush horse estate/training facility.

Some people in the horse world who have become so enamored of Mr. Roberts have stated that they don’t care if everything he wrote was false, because his message about the humane treatment of horses is so valuable. This is a dangerously narrow-minded view that is detrimental to intelligent readers everywhere because it devalues the meaning of the word ‘nonfiction’ as noninvented or nonimagined subject matter.

It also sends the wrong message to children who might grow up and become writers themselves someday. It says that, in effect, lying is okay; facts and fiction are interchangeable, and absolutely everything must be overly dramatized to sell.

Jonathan Karp, a Random House editor said: “I think that nonfiction writers are doing it more and more. I was meeting a writer the other day and the writer said, ‘Hey, I invented some dialogue, is that all right?’ I said absolutely not. And the writer said ‘I really want it to be vivid, and I know these two people met. What’s the harm?’

It’s immoral, that’s the harm!

People like Monty Roberts, however, apparently don’t get it when it comes to ethics in writing. What they do get are large advances from publishing houses for authors willing to call their works ‘memoirs’ rather than fiction and heavy publicity, particularly in the form of highly coveted television interviews, which are far easier to procure when ‘true story’ is written across the cover. (originally posted in 1999) — For more literary scams and fraudulent authors reports and  warnings about author fraud visit AllForums.com

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