An old quote from lawman Wyatt Earp came floating back to me last night: “Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.”

I’d just begun reading “The Latter Days,” the new warts-and-all memoir by Judith Freeman. On the front flap of the book jacket, the publisher promised a memoir filled with “candor and insight.” We were told adultery, loss of faith and heart surgery would play a part and that she had "abandoned Mormonism."

I opened the book to Chapter 1 but struggled to get beyond the first page, and not because of the content but because of the gaffes.

Freeman begins by writing about speed demon Ab Jenkins and his famous car. She refers to him as “Ab” twice and “Abe” twice. (It’s Ab. His middle name was Abbott.)

She writes, “His car was called the Mormon Meteor. In 1950, at the age of 67, he made his fastest lap ever — 13 miles at 199.19 mph.” (Laps? In the Meteor?)

Then she writes, “An announcer named Hot Rod Hundley was the radio sportscaster. ‘Ab Jenkins!’ he cried. ‘He has just broken his own record in the Mormon Meteor!’”

But in 1950, Hundley was a 16-year-old gym rat in West Virginia.

I mention all this not to lambaste Freeman but to make a point about credibility. The author was apparently careless, yes, but her publisher, Pantheon Books, bears the chagrin. With a cover price of $28.95, some of that money should have gone into hiring a fact-checker, or at least buying a sports encyclopedia.

When a publisher puts its name on a memoir that attempts to expose the inconsistencies of a major religion, one goal should be to print an opening page free of inconsistencies.

In contrast, I think of Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner who died last weekend at age 87. Wiesel knew early on in life his calling was to be a witness to suffering. And from age 15 on, he was determined to be a reliable witness.

In one of his books, he writes about his open-heart surgery. Having gone through the procedure myself, I was chilled by the accuracy and honesty of Wiesel’s descriptions. He got the spelling right. He got the facts right. But more than that, he got the human spirit right.

Wiesel knew if he was to be believed, he couldn’t get sloppy. He needed to be precise. He had to get things right. And in matters of faith, where a pulpit is a witness stand and people constantly share and bear testimony, being a reliable witness is all. Religious souls rise or fall on their authenticity.

When he died, Wiesel left a lesson behind for us all. In sports, finances, journalism — in every human endeavor — if you get caught cheating once, everything you’ve ever done will be called into question.

Wiesel knew that and went the extra mile to get things right.

With luck, the rest of us will eventually learn that lesson, too.

Email: jerjohn@deseretnews.com