Amy Griffin Memoir Controversy, Lawsuit Explained

Clare previously told the Times in September that the “mere sending” of a list of questions for fact-checking purposes “has caused additional trauma and extreme physical and emotional harm to a survivor of sexual assault, which is inexcusable.”

The Times, he said, had been “duped by a fabulist,” that telling a story about abuse was “not proof or corroboration.” 

Griffin’s editor at Penguin Random House imprint The Dial Press told the Times, “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.”

Jane Doe’s lawsuit alleges, per the Times and AP, that when she was assaulted at an eighth-grade dance, she was wearing a dress she borrowed from Griffin, and it was stained from the attack when she returned it.

In The Tell, Griffin wrote of loaning a classmate—identified by the pseudonym Claudia—a dress for a cotillion dance. After she started MDMA therapy, Griffin felt the urge to reconnect with “Claudia,” according to the book, and when they met up she asked if Claudia had also been abused by the teacher Griffin accused of assault, and Claudia said no.

Clare told the NY Times that the classmate they interviewed was not the character referred to as Claudia in the book.