Deborah Rey - An Author 'Outing' Herself

Those of you that have been keeping up with Deborah Rey's blog will no doubt have noticed over the last few months that she has mentioned that people have been spending a lot of time trying to work out 'who she really is'.

This has caused her no end of stress and pain, not least because in the past she has been attacked and victimised by people who seem to see her as some kind of threat to their own beliefs. Deborah of course wants to protect herself and her family from this sort of treatment, and chose to do this by taking a 'pen name' as so many other authors do.

Given this background, it may seem extraordinary then, that Deborah has now decided to talk about who she 'really' is on her blog. You can read the post by Clicking Here, but we thought that we should explain some of the background and how we reached this point as there does seem to be a witch hunt going on.

First things first, Deborah in the 60s & 70s was known by the name of Dody Cowan, and was quite a celebrity, becoming known around the world for her radio shows on Radio Netherland, which she hosted with her then husband Jerry. If you look around, these shows are still fondly remembered and there are various Yahoo groups etc. where they are still discussed.

When we first talked to Deborah about Rachel Sarai's Vineyard, her radio career and subsequent work in the media was of course discussed, and we fully understood why she wanted to use the name Deborah Rey. Perhaps surprisingly, we too had no wish to publish the book as being from 'Dody Cowan the Celebrity' despite the fact that it could have sold more books or gained publicity, as we felt that it could detract from what is a very serious and important book.

This approach though, seems to have inflamed the interest of a certain set of people, and perhaps because they couldn't find records showing 'Rachel Sarai' or 'Deborah Rey' appearing in Holland during the war, it has created its own doubt over the book's authenticity.

Certainly, in the light of the Defonseca Hoax we have been fielding all manner of enquiries and 'helpful' anonymous messages, and I know Deborah has received far rougher treatment via her blog.

The final straw this week was when we received a message via our web site from somebody claiming to be Sharon Sergeant, who is the researcher who uncovered the Defonseca Hoax, telling us what we already knew - that Deborah was in fact Dody - but that additionally she believed that because of this, Rachel Sarai's Vineyard was similarly a fraud.

She also stated that 'Investigative reporters in Amsterdam will be shortly be revealing some of this information.' Whether this was really from the lady in question or such reporters exist, who knows, but clearly, this was all starting to get out of hand, and Deborah decided to 'Out' herself on her blog, as you can see.

We feel that it is a real shame that a lady who has been through the sort of experiences that Deborah has, cannot retain at least a small amount of privacy for herself and her family, though we understand why she needed to do this. We obviously support her in every way we can.

We would additionally ask that if the real Sharon Sergeant, or any other body or publication requires information relating to either Deborah or Rachel Sarai's Vineyard, that they contact ourselves rather than Deborah.

We think she has had enough to put up with already.