It conflicts because he and others have said that his father left his mother in Hawaii when he went off to Harvard. But we now know she wasn't there to be left. She was in Seattle, and had been for 10 months or so.
A man with a big ego doesn't write a book, two books actually, about himself without at least checking out a few facts, especially when as you say, of events he could have no personal knowledge of. All he had do was pick up the phone and call his grandmother. She had to know.
Thus he's probably concealing something behind that legend
It makes a lot of sense if Stanley wanted to get away from her new husband due to marital difficulties. It is already in the public domain their relationship was troubled by 1962. I don't find it all that hard to believe their troubles started a year earlier. Do you?
Not at all. I tend to think the marriage, if it existed at all, was one of expediancy and that they never lived together as a couple.
He didn’t need to call his grandmother to get the facts — his mother was still alive when he wrote that book.
He makes it up as he goes.
And this is important because...
All he had do was pick up the phone and call his grandmother. She had to know.
How do you know she told him the truth? Ever consider the possibility that she blamed his father for her daughter's unhappiness, and wanted to portray him in the worst possible light to her grandson?