The Choice of The Salt Path - Inspiration Porn or Malevolent Malingerer?

What the Raynor Winn scandal tells us about chronic illness.

The divergent social perceptions that The Salt Path offered - Saint or Sinner - was never a fair binary for people with illness or, from what it seems, rooted in reality.

To be transparent, I haven’t read The Salt Path, but the real story personally is that it has been recommended to me endlessly due to being an unwell woman, because of its recovery arc. My instinctual reaction to this was one of deflation, like a sunken sourdough. As in my heart, dealing with the emotional labour of an ‘inspiration’ trope was an imposition.

If you need a catch-up with the scandal revealed by Hadjimatheou, a swift TL;DR is that the walk to wellness through the turbulent storms of illness, of being swindled and thrust into homelessness, was baloney on the scale of a Katz deli bagel. It turned out they owned land in France, Raynor allegedly stole £64,000 from her boss, and this duplicity has called into question the recovery story and whether Moth Winn was actually terminally ill.

To wildly speculate (as Rainor Winn did), maybe this was her attempt to siphon off the pressure of her conscience of being the swindler, or it was just too much of a temptation of riches and mass sympathy. Perhaps they stuck a pin in a card of possible stories and, as their real name was Walker, they decided to go on a very long walk? Or peeked over at a copy of Rachel Joyce’s book ‘The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ and thought that was a good idea?! To be fair, Raynor Winn (Rain or Wind) is a lovely pen name.

We live up the road from one of Captain Tom’s daughters, and the tale has unnerving similarities. The power of hope and of carrying the archetype of the goodness of humanity is heady, tempting fare.

The Redemptive Deal at the Crossroads

Yet, it is not just a moral fable about a couple’s purported duplicity. The hidden story that was in plain sight is that of the narrative redemption arc that is so dominant in publishing.

This trope is something we’re constantly battling in the chronic illness world - it’s there in Miranda Hart’s book ‘I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You’, which has been waved like candy to us. Kate Weinberg’s novel, ‘There’s Nothing Wrong With Her’, wasn’t much better, as it only took some meaningful lifestyle changes and friendship for the protagonist to recover from Long Covid.

On many levels, this is understandable - we want to be told everything’s ok, that we will heal, that the world is on our side and isn’t a raging amoral behemoth that doesn’t care if we live or die. That biology is decay.

That is why stories like this sell; it is why there is so much pressure to conform to this narrative arc. And why some make a deal with the devil at the crossroads to ‘augment’ reality. What would Robert Johnson have to say about his deal at the crossroads?

The Salt Path ratchets this dynamic up as not only is there restoration, there is redemption, there is nature, the Uber of recovery stories (just sit next to a waterfall and your arthritis will vanish), and there is love - a couple overcoming the odds together. No wonder it struck a powerful chord with people.

I remember having mild ME in my 20s, and my partner and I had to vacate the house for a day or two. We decided to camp on a path by the sea, but then there was a storm. We couldn’t even get the tent up. This caused all sorts of upheaval, but I can tell you that trying to survive outside in the British weather when unwell is not all it’s cracked up to be.

The salient point is that people with illness aren’t going to feel better, or be cured by tramping on a long walk or being made homeless.

Rugged Romanticism and the Myth of Noble Suffering

But it’s precisely this hearty British independence, to fight the odds, to cast aside support, to be a personification of dam busters, that, when applied to chronic illness, is so dangerous.

I’m curious to know why they didn’t stay with friends or family - did they not have any, or did they already understand what they were like? Was risking exposure and hypothermia for your terminally ill husband instead of applying for benefits that wise?

It plays into the narrative that is being so pushed by the government at the moment that it is weak to rely on welfare, on family, that we just need to get the air hooks out and pull ourselves up.

We have to consider privilege too. Would this story receive the same traction or exposure if this happened to a lower-class couple? This sympathetic platforming hasn’t been shown to the Traveller community. Can you imagine the uproar if we forced Catherine, Princess of Wales, on a 630-mile hike in response to her cancer diagnosis? It’s clear that only a certain demographic is allowed to ‘fail’.

If we multiply it en masse, and expect everyone chronically or terminally ill to lose all their possessions, home and go on a long walk, we might see the cruelty in it.

Illness isn’t a Famous Five story. Or an Instagrammable one. Illness is not an aesthetic.

The Trope of the Malevolent Malingerer

What’s the other side of the half-bitten silver coin of this tale? There are two polemics about illness that are held in the popular consciousness. The first we’ve seen is the ill person elevated loftily up as inspiration porn - likely to placate people’s fears if they ever had to venture into the kingdom of the sick.

The other is the malingerer - the scumbag out for gain by elaborating the pity party. If one has Long Covid or ME, one understands that this belief is embedded deep in society’s psyche.

Mainly because crap-arse psychiatrists desperate for a piece of the orthodox medical pie did a lot of media & shitty machinations that we were exactly that. So amazing were the secondary gains of being ill that whole swathes of the population, usually women, were exploiting this gain.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a multi-million pound book deal, fame and a miraculous recovery for us - there’s usually only financial precarity.

It’s the saint or sinner, Madonna or whore complex all over again. But either way, the path of inspiration or the path of the malingerer, no one with illness wins with this story.

It has moved beyond whether Moth Winn has CBD or not; the fall from grace and lack of authenticity about other aspects of their story mean that the social perception of the malingerer is already established.

If there is any salt-encrusted rind of hope to salvage, maybe reflection from the publishing industry and society on what they expect from people facing a chronic or terminal illness would be a step forward. Do they have to be lauded as a balm to cover the sheer terror that life can present?

Memoir, Meaning and the Illness Narrative

A reason why stories like The Salt Path touch something so primordial in us is that they offer meaning. Space is beautiful and awe-inspiring, but it’s also a cold, relentless vacuum that’s trying to kill us.

I’m not trying to say that we should be nihilistic doom bunnies. What I’m attempting to say is that holding the nuance and multiple viewpoints at once is important. That being in the middle ground or just wanting a cup of tea and a State that will support you with dignity when we are at our most vulnerable is okay. But I suppose that doesn’t make a good book.

I’m not a memoirist or a journo who mines their personal life for copy; fiction and social commentary are hard enough. Memoir is a fluid and membranous art that raises all sorts of ethical and reflective issues. How do you write about those who haven’t consented to being in the public eye? How reliant are memory and our own biases? Are we all unreliable narrators to some degree?

I’ve had two (ex) sisters-in-law writing for major newspapers, and it’s distinctly unfun waiting to see which family member is up for scrutiny next.

Yet, however much one navel gazes at the nuances of memoir, it’s pretty bloody obvious to personally recognise when something’s an outright untruth or omission. Starting the story with stealing £64K and then losing your house because of a high-interest loan just doesn’t have the same vibe.

If Ti’moth’y & Gaynor had claimed from the start, it was auto-fiction (a mix of autobiography and fiction) fair enough, that it was her path to redemption after financial mayhem, this might have worked. But they had to claim the moral vein that it was their authentic story - that it wasn’t distorted through the powerful lens of plain ole lies and a massive pinch of salt.

It is a stunning cover though

The aspect that concerns me is what this means for those with chronic illness who write memoir. Is it fair to ask them to build up the reputation of this genre? It’s a potent writing form that can reclaim power for those who have been oppressed. (And that’s not an overstatement if you’ve been chronically ill in our nightmare of a patriarchal medical system)

The journalist has highlighted how vital integrity is when writing memoir, but in this case, how important ethics are too when writing about illness. Will this potentially impact an already marginalised group of people and writers? Time will tell. Jaimie Pattison, writer with ME/CFS, and invisible chronic illness advocate.

Mutant Message and The Price of Illness Myths

Maybe we’re all culpable in the delusion of creating pedestal occupiers? That we want to worship the stylite on the pillar or throw tomatoes at them.

Maybe the message just isn’t as straightforward as we want it to be?

It’s not exactly the first time we’ve been here. ‘Mutant Message Down Under’ by Marlo Morgan was a huge fake hit in the 90s that carried the same hunt for meaning and healing through walkabout. Except this time, the protagonist was buried in an ancient Aboriginal ceremony to be revived. That was made up too. There’s Australian Belle Gibson, the Netflix cider vinegar woman, who also faked her cancer recovery for profit.

Do we just not trust anyone who goes on long walks or who is Australian?!

That would be silly. What’s needed are rigorous publishing standards and training on ableism and ethical disability representation.

It is possible to be compassionate to those around us dealing with illness without expecting them to heal themselves by going on a massive walk.

What The Salt Path did was speak to the ancient bones of the human desire for pilgrimage, for connection, for triumph over adversity - it fits the hero’s journey perfectly. The only caveat to the hero’s journey, though, is that it has to be based on authenticity, not delusion and sliding mirrors, as that’s a whole other fairy tale.

Note: As in the process of publishing this Raynor Winn has released a statement which raises as many questions as it attempts to deal with.

If you do need some quality recommendations about walking, nature, chronic illness:

• The Electricity of Every Living Thing, by Katherine May

• Some of Us Just Fall, by Polly Aitken

• The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life, by Frances Ryan (our current #pedanticzebra bookclub)

• The English Path, by Kim Taplin

• The Collected Schizophrenias, by Esme Weijun Wang

• Diary of a Young Naturalist, by Dara McAnulty

• Ways of Walking: Essays on Movement, Place and Leisure, Edited by Antonia Mackay and Gemma Commane

• The Last Hillwalker, by John D. Burns

• I Belong Here, by Anita Sethi

• The Granite Kingdom, by Tim Hannigan