Rachel DeLoache Williams

So I read this book after watching the Netflix dramatic film, Inventing Anna which was based on a New Yorker article, not on this book. This memoir is a very interesting story of a young scam artist, Anna, who managed to con a lot of people (and financial institutions) written by one of her victims. Unfortunately, it's really not as entertaining as the film.

I'm bemused by the fact that I felt Rachel (the author) was portrayed more sympathetically in the Netflix documentary than she was in her own memoir. After watching, Inventing Anna, I truly felt sorry for Rachel. She was scammed by a friend into picking up an enormous hotel bill, and I could totally see how that could happen. The film made me believe that there truly was a friendship between Anna and Rachel, and that Rachel didn't just care about living NY life in the fast lane with someone who provided entry into that world. Rachel seemed more innocent.

In the memoir, Rachel indicates that she felt sorry for Anna because she seemed lonely, and that most of the relationship was based on her extreme empathy for Anna. So the friendship seems more contrived, more unequal, and less likely. Which unfortunately does give the reader a feeling of "what exactly did you like about this woman beyond her money?".

Regardless of how I felt about the author, she is a victim of a very persuasive scammer, and I definitely felt sorry for the four months she spent trying to get paid back and the stress she must have been under with these giant credit card bills and no great way to extricate herself from the debt. Of course in hindsight, most readers are going to feel she made some huge mistakes and ignored some giant red flags, but don't sociopaths always do a great job using charm and persuasion to get their victims to acquiesce to their desires.

A fascinating story, but personally, I'd watch it on Netflix and skip the book.… (mehr)

Fieldnotes:
New York City/Marrakech, 2016-2019

1 Fake Heiress
1 Narrator with an Agenda
62k Credit Card Debt

Lies Upon Lies
1 Court Case
1 Vanity Fair Article

Names Dropped All Over the Floor

The Short Version:
I came to this knowing nothing about Anna Delvey, the fake German heiress who apparently left a string of unpaid hotel and restaurant bills in her wake - and who was turned in by a former friend who was left footing the exorbitant bill from a Moroccan luxury hotel.

Never has it been more clear to me when reading a memoir that there is a purpose, an intention, a goal behind writing a memoir. In Rachel Williams' case? To convince everyone (possibly including herself) that she was the victim because of her good nature - and not because she was fascinated by/greedy for the high life and made (understandable) mistakes accordingly.

Rachel spends a lot of time talking about how she is so shy and quiet and processes things internally - and that she didn't turn to others to help sort out her looming debts because of this. Of course, she has now written a Vanity Fair article and this memoir, which isn't the most supportive evidence. She also name-drops celebrities, restaurants, photographers.

All this did was remind me that she was in her mid/late 20s and thought anyone outside of that bubble cared about any of those things. It's hard for me to get worked up about how she's "broke" while she simultaneously talks about "lunching" at 5 star hotels and how her father is running for office. I would have had more sympathy if at any point she had acknowledged that she got caught up in the "VIP treatment". Instead she spent a lot of pages crying that the police implied that maybe she wasn't such a victim - since she actually went on the luxury vacation and signed the credit card slip that she now didn't want to pay for. And she definitely lost me when she acted as if cyberstalking Anna's social media and screenshotting everything and forwarding the vaguebooking to the DA to "demonstrate Anna's insensitivity" meant the DA asked if she had considered a career in investigation...… (mehr)