Hey, I'm fascinated (perhaps unduly so) by The Bob, and I love much of his work, but I won't argue with anyone for calling him a liar.

He came to New York with a lot of made-up stories about himself, and he hid and denied the simple truth of his personal background long enough for a number of fictional "autobiographical" details to be widely published.

I suppose this can be defended as some sort of artisitic decision, not unlike renaming himself, but a certain degree of bad faith has to have been involved. Maybe that's when and how he bought himself enough bad karma to bring on the kind of fame that quickly became so uncomfortable for him to live with.