A true he said/she said from today's NY Times:

Mr. Talese, a renowned author of nonfiction books and a former reporter for The New York Times, said in an interview yesterday that he believed it was unacceptable for an author or a publisher to present as nonfiction a work that contained any composite or fictional characters or events, or that otherwise blurred the lines between truth and fiction.

"Nonfiction takes no liberty with the facts, and it should not," Mr. Talese said. "I think all writers should be held accountable. The trouble with book publishers is that they don't have the staff or they don't want to have the staff to ensure the veracity of a writer. You could argue that they had better, or they're going to have more stories like this one. My wife is going to hate me for this, but that is what I believe."

His wife, Ms. Talese, whose Nan A. Talese imprint at the Doubleday unit of Random House published Mr. Frey's book, disagreed, saying memoir cannot be held to the same standard as history or biography.