Wishful Truth-Telling

In an interview for the Paris Review, John Cheever once said that 'The telling of lies is a sort of sleight of hand that displays our deepest feelings about life': an opinion with which I'm inclined to agree.
Whilst a lie can often be mistaken as purely an act of deception and deceit, by fabricating the facts, a writer who lies is revealing a great deal more about themselves than could ever be achieved through a purely truthful account of reality.

And then of course, there is the matter of intentional lying versus misremembered facts. A infamous example of intentional fabrication can be found Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, in which, under the pretence of a non-fiction account of his travels in Kashmir, Mortenson claims to have promised to build a school in repayment for the help he received when he became stuck during an ascent of the K2 mountain in the region. It has since come to light, that this claim and many other comments in Mortenson's book are no more than elaborate falsifications. However, whilst much of the truth presented in the book may appear to be no more than tall-tales, if as Cheever suggests, lying 'displays our deepest feelings about life' then we can perhaps at least gain some insight into what Mortenson would at least like to be the truth.

Perhaps therefore, a writer can inadvertently be at their most truthful when they're exercising the most deceit.