The reason for this is obvious. Hoaxes are factitious events. They depend on irrational responses and dazzling coincidences. The course they take is strictly unpredictable. We're not bothered by the fact that an American writer named Pound developed his own crazy theory of economics, or that we read a great romantic poet called Wordsworth.
Real people are immune to such trivial associations.
But in a hoax everything matters, nothing exists by chance. There's still much about Ern Malley that remains mysterious, and even more about Helen Darville, and The Hand that Signed the Paper . Michael Heyward is the author of The Ern Malley Affair . This piece is extracted from a paper delivered at the Melbourne Writers Festival and published in Australian Book Review . Reprinted with permission.