1. Mernissi strongly advocates discarding the veil and does not acknowledge the complexity of the phenomenon of reveiling occurring in various parts of the Muslim world and its diaspora (seeScheherazade Goes Westpp.208–19in particular, but alsoLe Harem politiqueandIslam and Democracy).
2. Despite Marjorie Perloff's dismissal of the scandal overJames Frey'sA Million Little Piecesas a“brouhaha”(659), a book that she presumes will very soon fall into oblivion (661), it is important to most readers, the distinctionPerloffmakes between“Oprah and her core readership”(660) notwithstanding.
3. Corrigan emphasizes that even though such an attempt might be utopian, the genre is defined by the author's determination to tell the truth. Gornick's attempt to defend herself is revelatory when she states that “memoir writing is a genre still in need of an informed readership,” by which she means a readership that will assume that the writer took liberty with the facts (Fresh Air,“Friday's Show: August 14, 2003”). In her response, Corrigan maintained her point that a writer of a conventional autobiography has a responsibility and that, in the absence of a signal (such as a prefatory note) that alerts the reader that some parts have been fictionalized, readers will assume a “good faith accounting” of a life (Fresh Air,“Friday's Show: August 14, 2003”).
4. “The French and German publishers of my books always insist on having the word ‘harem’ on the cover and a photo of a veiled woman. When I protest, they tell me that this makes it sell better, even if the contents of the book contradict this image.”(Islam and Democracy187n10)