True Story

From Luc Sante (a.k.a Pinakothek, a.k.a., All-Seeing Eye, Jr., and author of Low Life), courtesy of Hermeneutic Circle:

I Was a Spy (1933). I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany (1936). I Was a Convict (1939). I Was an Adventuress (1940). I Was a Prisoner on Devil's Island (1941). I Was a Criminal (1945). I Was a Male War Bride (1949). I Was a Shoplifter (1950). I Was an American Spy (1951). I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951). I Was a Burlesque Queen (1953).I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). I Was a Teenage Rumpot [book/daddy's personal favorite among the titles, followed by:] (1960). I Was a Teenage Mummy (1962).

The personal-confession genre in American popular journalism was largely the creation of Bernarr Macfadden (1868-1955), the physical-fitness guru and pulp baron who founded publications ranging from Physical Culture to True Detective and the ineffable New York Evening Graphic.

The post is particularly amusing for Sante's deconstruction of the sub-Weegee-ish jacket photo for the ripped-from-the-headlines shocker, I Was a House Detective.