MovieChat Forums > The Night Listener (2006) Discussion > Gabriel - and the 'real' fake boy

Gabriel - and the 'real' fake boy

posted 17 years ago by ender342
10 replies | jump to latest

Everyone thinks the problem is with Donna the sicko.
But I wonder about Gabriel. He seems an odd duck indeed:

1) If he had doubts about the boy's existence, wouldn't the logical thing be to insist on a personal interview with him before going ahead with publishing the book? Wouldn't that make more sense than flying to some faraway town and clumsily snooping?

2) His name: Noone. Doesn't that strike anyone as strange?

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Maupin says the story was inspired by real conversations with someone claiming to be a young boy. Perhaps I should not doubt his word. But here is a book - supposedly penned by a 14-year-old New Yorker describing his horrible childhood - which may well have been the basis for the story:

A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story (Paperback)
by Anthony Godby Johnson (Author), Paul Monette (Foreword), Fred Rogers (Afterword), Jack L. Godby (Introduction)

This book was accepted as genuine by the sainted (and now sadly departed) Fred Rogers ('Mr. Rogers' for those who don't know), who wrote a touching appreciation of it -- but as I read on I found it ever harder to believe. Now it seems (according to Amazon reviewers) to have been proven a fabrication. Was the fabricator a 'Donna' or a Gabriel or what? What purpose do such fables serve? Are they entertaining? Cautionary? Cathartic? Pathetic would be a better term, or so it seems to me.

[–] ender342 17 years ago

The Amazon reviews are here for anyone interested:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0451181859/sr=1-1/qid=1184674007/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop/103-4056512-2059828?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&qid=1184674007&sr=1-1#R22FZ0L4SPLT28

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] controlling_the_strings 17 years ago

To answer your first question, he couldnt organize a metting even if he wanted too because he tried calling Peter/Donna and it said the phone wasnt connected. So he had no way to get in contact wtih.

[–] lizard666666 17 years ago

I think Noone was just taken in by the con, the whole thing wasn't his lie he was just a loyal follower because he wanted it to be true. This follows in line with all the people who fell for the book you mentioned. It suits their needs, so they praise it. There are people who do this with religion constantly and the people they con, simply won't admit they've been had.

[–] alomba1328 17 years ago

People allow themselves to be conned like this all the time - just look at how many of them show up to vote at election time, as if any of the phony, blood sucking whores that we elect have ever done a single thing to make any of our lives better.

[–] kchawgo 17 years ago

To be honest, to me the story has a feel of J T Leroy. He is the author of A Heart is Deceitful Above all Things' and a couple of others. He claims to be boy which is false, abused as a child (false) and countless other things and the book is based on his life. It later became clear that J T Leroy was a girl and the whole thing was fabricated. It would also explain why he/she could never be photographed. So there is a falseness to the book for me as well as the film. I think the key words are 'inspired by a true story' which means you can take a small thread of truth and run with it. My thoughts any way.

[–] sdsungod 17 years ago

2) His name: Noone. Doesn't that strike anyone as strange?

I don't understand. What is strange about the name "Noone" - it seems a perfectly ordinary name.

"Enough of that technical talk, Foo!"

[–] ender342 17 years ago

"Noone" = "No One"

[–] reiji_kido99 17 years ago

I think that was intentional on the part of the script writer. The real people involved probably didn't have that name. It was a movie-exclusive story element, but a good catch on your part as I didn't notice.

[–] kendoll82 16 years ago

I think it's the publishers' responsibility to check out what they're representing as truth. The book would've never been published had they done a little digging and insisted on meeting the so-called Anthony. And for the author, it's just bad journalism. I would never agree to help write a book about a young boy I had never met, no matter how bad I felt for him or him having been abused with AIDS now. And if I did, than that would be FICTION, the same way The Night Listener was fiction based on real events.