“The Salt Path,” an inspiring 2018 memoir about a British couple in their 50s who walked hundreds of miles after losing their home, became an instant bestseller and later adapted into a movie.
Now, its author is being accused of making up parts of the story.
Here’s everything we know about the controversy that has the writer Raynor Winn at its center.
Raynor Winn’s former boss said she embezzled $86,000 from her husband’s company
In “The Salt Path,” a couple called Raynor and Moth Winn invest in a family friend’s business that fails, leaving them liable for its debts. Their home and land is sold to help pay the creditors, and they embark on a 630-mile walk along the coast of southwest England.
Around the same time, Moth was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration (CBD), according to the book.
More than two million copies of “The Salt Path” have been sold worldwide. While it’s believed that Winn was paid a modest advance of around £10,000 ($13,500) for her first book, she has made £9.5 million ($12.8 million) in book sales, including from three follow-ups, according to data from Nielsen BookScan.
The movie adaptation of the story, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, was released in the UK in May. It has grossed $16 million worldwide, with a US release date yet to be confirmed.
Citing interviews with eight people “with direct knowledge of what happened,” including her former boss, The Observer reported Sunday that the couple lost their home in the fallout of Winn stealing around £64,000 ($86,393) while working as a bookkeeper in the mid-2000s.
Ros Hemmings also said that the Winns’ real names are Sally and Tim Walker.
Winn was questioned but never charged in connection with the embezzlement, and she and her former employer settled the disagreement privately. Winn confirmed these details in a statement on Wednesday.
To do so, the couple borrowed £100,000 from a family friend. When that friend faced financial trouble of his own, debt collectors recouped the loan by taking the Winns’ home.
The Observer also cast doubt on the nature of Moth’s illness, reporting that it spoke to medical experts who were skeptical that he had CBD. According to the NHS, the average life expectancy of someone with CBD is around six to eight years from when their symptoms start. Winn has said Moth was diagnosed with the condition over 12 years ago.
It also found evidence that the Winns owned a property in France in 2013, meaning that they were not homeless when they began their journey as described in “The Salt Path.”
Raynor Winn denied parts of The Observer report
On Wednesday, Winn shared a length statement on her website.
In response to the allegations of embezzlement, she stated that it “was a pressured time” in the years before the 2008 economic crisis. “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry,” she said.
She maintained that she and her husband lost their house after investing in a lifelong friend’s property portfolio, which left the couple liable for large sums of money.
Addressing the house in France, Winn said it was “an uninhabitable ruin in a bramble patch.” She said she and her husband attempted to sell it in 2013, but were told by a local estate agent that there was no point marketing it as it was “virtually worthless.”
Winn also shared photos of documents appearing to confirm her husband’s diagnosis, one of which showed that he had previously been considered as having an “atypical” CBD.
Winn wrote that she “will always be grateful that Moth’s version of CBS is indolent, its slow progression has allowed us time to discover how walking helps him.”
However, the charity PSPA, which supports people with CBD and progressive supranuclear palsy, said in statement Monday that it was “shocked and disappointed to learn of the allegations” and had cut ties with them.
In the fallout, Winn has also withdrawn from a planned 17-stop tour of the UK, which would have seen her perform readings alongside a band.
This isn’t the first time an author has come under fire for lying to readers
There have been scandals in the past surrounding books marketed as memoirs that have later been found out to part or wholly falsified.
In 2006, The Smoking Gun website reported that large parts of James Frey’s 2003 memoir about his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction and subsequent recovery, “A Million Little Pieces,” were exaggerated or fabricated. Readers who felt misled filed lawsuits against both Frey and his publisher, Random House, the LA Times reported. He told The Guardian in 2006 if he could do the situation over, he “would be more clear up front about the fact that it was a manipulated text, that it was a text that was not a work of non-fiction.”
Similarly, in 2015, Penguin Random House Australia withdrew copies of “The Whole Pantry” recipe book by the influencer Belle Gibson, who built her career on the false claim that she had cancer. Gibson claimed she was wrongly diagnosed by an alternative wellness practioner.
In a video posted to TikTok, a literary editor named Grace Pengelly, who said she previously worked at HarperCollins UK, shared her thoughts on how Winn’s story made it to publication without being fully fact-checked.
“Publishing, particularly in the UK, operates on the basis of trust,” Pengelly said. “When an author signs a contract, they are making a promise, they’re entering a legal agreement that the book that they will ultimately provide to that publisher is the truth and not a fabrication.”
She added that commissioning editors working in publishing, unlike journalists, aren’t responsible for fact-checking books. Instead, their primary responsibility is to help authors craft their stories from draft to publication.
Publication of Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed
Winn’s fourth book was scheduled to be published in the UK in October. The book, titled “On Winter Hill,” follows Winn as she embarks on a solo coast-to-coast walk in winter across the north of England in winter, according to Penguin’s synopsis.
While a new publication date for the book hasn’t been announced, Penguin said the decision to postpone its release was made with Winn.
In a statement provided to The Bookseller, the Penguin imprint, Michael Joseph, said that the allegations about “The Salt Path” have caused Winn and her husband “considerable distress” and they were prioritizing supporting the author.
Representatives for Raynor Winn, Penguin, and The Observer did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular working hours.
A spokesperson for the Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features, who produced the screen adaptation, said in a statement to Deadline that “there were no known claims against the book at the time of optioning it or producing and distributing the film.”
Their statement described the movie as “a faithful adaptation of the book that we optioned.” It added: “We undertook all necessary due diligence before acquiring the book.”
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