This video, which blogger Harry Allen theorizes was part of the electronic press kit Riverhead sent out to promote Margaret Seltzer‘s recalled and debunked memoir of gang life, is unexpectedly riveting. It’s not just interesting because of the kind of stuff that Seltzer’s saying — “It’s like being a Palestinian suicide bomber. When you’re born into it … it makes perfect, perfect sense” — it’s also just amazing to watch someone lie and lie and lie. You’d think, though, that her total inability to make anything like eye contact with the camera, or maybe the way her weird drawly accent comes and goes, would have tipped someone off to the fact that Seltzer was playing a character — and not particularly well. But of course, everyone was fooled.