Can You Ever Forgive Me? True Story
The True Story Behind Can You Ever Forgive Me? Is a Literary Nightmare
3
After she was caught, she became a copywriter for Scholastic's magazines. In 2008, her final book — Can You Ever Forgive Me? — was published. The title was not a plea for forgiveness but rather a line from one of her forgeries. While promoting her memoir in 2008, Israel told NPR, "You own the character. I finally owned Noel Coward and Edna Ferber and Louise Brooks and people like that. I had always adored large personalities, I had a good ear and I guess a talent to amuse. I could be funny, and that's how I did it."
Israel died in Manhattan on Dec. 24, 2015, at the age of 75, but she never seemed to regret her time spent creating forgeries. She wrote in her memoir, "I still consider the letters to be my best work."