Oprah and James Frey

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I remember the great angst and hubub when this was going on a couple of years ago. Was it Ron Cey who was so volatile on this subject?

 

I think that the book is still a worthy read and has probably helped a lot of people find their way to getting sober.

 

 

Oprah Winfrey Apologizes to Author James Frey

 

There's baking soda and vinegar, gasoline and a match, acid and eyeballs and Oprah and James Frey. Or wait - should we scratch that last pair off the list? Has the notorious and telegenic feud between the two cooled? According to an article in Vanity Fair, which has been confirmed by Oprah's folks, the talk-show host recently reached out to the best-selling author she annihilated on live TV a few years ago for fibbing in his memoir.

 

"We invited him back on the show" last spring, says Oprah's spokeswoman, Angela dePaul, but the reunion didn't work out for reasons she declined to divulge. A few months later, the Chatelaine of Chicago herself picked up the phone and called Frey to apologize for the public whupping she handed him in 2006, when it was revealed that his 2003 addiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, had some not-so-little lies in it, like the fact that he spent only a few hours in police custody rather than the three months in jail he described in his book. Oops.

 

Oprah, who had taken the memoir to heart back when she thought it was nonfiction, promoted it to best-sellerdom through her book club and went so far as to call Larry King Live to defend Frey during a show questioning the veracity of A Million Little Pieces. After The Smoking Gun did some digging that fatally undermined the author's already unsteady wall of credibility, Oprah invited him back on her show and got all high school principal on him. "That's a lie. It's not an idea, James. That's a lie,

[isadorah]

[quote name='Crow Daddy Magnus

[Guest Speed Racer]

[quote name='Crow Daddy Magnus

[bjorn_skurj]

I think he deserves a public lashing for his insane use of capitalization.

[Guest Speed Racer]

I think he should have donated a large sum of the proceeds he made from the book to rehab centers and programs to help people with addiction since he climbed his way to stardom on their backs.

 

Climbed over their backs? I don't think he would have been able to write the kind of vivid story he did if he hadn't gone through a rehab program. I don't doubt for a SECOND he went through a ridiculously miserable period in his life; and I'm not about to rank his addiction (or simply abuse, if that's all it was) as 'less serious' or 'more serious' than anyone else's. You don't end up in places like Hazelden without going through some bad shit, whether or not you suffer from the disease of addiction.

 

Reading the book well before all of the hullabaloo, I often wondered if he was sort of "Henry Miller-ing" his story - writing the 'truth' as he experienced it. Should his publisher have billed it as memoir? Probably not. Should he have backed it? Probably not. Would he have been in a shitload of trouble with the people paying to promote his book if he came clean? Absolutely. He made a RIDICIULOUSLY stupid mistake, but I think it's fine to get past it six years later.

[isadorah]

Climbed over their backs? I don't think he would have been able to write the kind of vivid story he did if he hadn't gone through a rehab program. I don't doubt for a SECOND he went through a ridiculously miserable period in his life; and I'm not about to rank his addiction (or simply abuse, if that's all it was) as 'less serious' or 'more serious' than anyone else's. You don't end up in places like Hazelden without going through some bad shit, whether or not you suffer from the disease of addiction.

 

Reading the book well before all of the hullabaloo, I often wondered if he was sort of "Henry Miller-ing" his story - writing the 'truth' as he experienced it. Should his publisher have billed it as memoir? Probably not. Should he have backed it? Probably not. Would he have been in a shitload of trouble with the people paying to promote his book if he came clean? Absolutely. He made a RIDICIULOUSLY stupid mistake, but I think it's fine to get past it six years later.

 

 

I'm pretty sure he didn't go through a rehab program. The dentist scene was fiction; the relationship with the girl complete fiction; and I'm pretty sure the relationship with Leonard was fiction as well. Maybe I skewed in my mind how much of the book was a lie, but for some reason I vaguely remember the biggest hubub of it was that he never suffered from addiction or went through rehab. He went there to do some research for a fiction book; then when the book was completed he and the publisher decided to bill the book as a memoir because that genre of fiction wasn't selling and the memoir market seemed to be the place to get it to hit big. Again, I could be exaggerating on all of this, but that's how I remember it. Let's call it my memoir of James Frey's lie. hee hee.

[Good Old Neon]

As someone who has battled addiction, it struck me as fraudulent from the get go

[Guest Speed Racer]

I'm pretty sure he didn't go through a rehab program...I vaguely remember the biggest hubub of it was that he never suffered from addiction or went through rehab. He went there to do some research for a fiction book;

 

No, I think he really did go through the program; PRISON was the big farce. He said he went to prison for 90 days, but he really only spent about 4 hours getting booked for driving with an open Pabst in Michigan.

[Lodestar]

No, I think he really did go through the program; PRISON was the big farce. He said he went to prison for 90 days, but he really only spent about 4 hours getting booked for driving with an open Pabst in Michigan.

 

I think this is correct.

 

I just completed a five-year writing degree where my focus was creative nonfiction, and I couldn't be more tired of hearing people debate about this one fucking book.

[isadorah]

No, I think he really did go through the program; PRISON was the big farce. He said he went to prison for 90 days, but he really only spent about 4 hours getting booked for driving with an open Pabst in Michigan.

 

it's funny because you can't really find any hard firm details on any of this, except the criminal record. ah well. i'll concede i might be wrong about the extent of his rehab experience, although it does stick in me that he didn't spend the amount of time there that he said he did, who knows. i still stand behind my climbed the backs statement because what he did was wrong and dishonest and counter to the needed honesty for over coming addiction. i think he took advantage of other people's misery. all my cynical and extremely closed minded biased opinion of course. i'm sure i am in the minority on that opinion. no biggie.

[Mrs. Peel]

I also seem to recall hearing that Lily was real, but she didn't kill herself in the way that he described and he wasn't there when it happened.

[M. (hristine]

I don't give a fuck what genre the book gets filed under, or Frey's intentions. I've given up judging people by my perception of their intention. It's difficult enough for me to discern my own intention.

 

I personally know two actual human beings (an alcoholic and a junkie) for whom that book was profoundly affecting. The book is 6 years old and both are still clean.

 

Shrug. It's not like trying to prove the veracity of the Bible.

 

his publisher billed it as memoir

I still think this is the most likely scenario.

[Good Old Neon]

I don't give a fuck what genre the book gets filed under, or Frey's intentions. I've given up judging people by my perception of their intention. It's difficult enough for me to discern my own intention.

 

I personally know two actual human beings (an alcoholic and a junkie) for whom that book was profoundly affecting. The book is 6 years old and both are still clean.

 

Shrug. It's not like trying to prove the veracity of the Bible.

 

 

I still think this is the most likely scenario.

 

I don

[M. (hristine]

I don

[bjorn_skurj]

Memoirs are hot. Novels are not, unless they're stupid Dan Brown pieces of shit. Frey made a business decision, and I would not be a bit surprised if the publishers knew all along.

[Lammycat]

If somebody buys a product believing it's the same thing as advertised and the product isn't that thing then it's deception. That would rankle me. Doesn't really have any bearing on how poor/excellent the product is, though.

 

ed. And what Dan said^.

[bjorn_skurj]

As a journalist, it rankles me too - Frey's bullshitting gives all of us a bad name. That, and the capitalization. Jesus.

[mpolak21]

Memoirs are hot. Novels are not, unless they're stupid Dan Brown pieces of shit. Frey made a business decision, and I would not be a bit surprised if the publishers knew all along.

 

I kind of find James Frey to in the Dan Brown/Twilight category of literature anyway. If Million Little Pieces helped people get sober that's great, but I still found it to be it to be an incredibly shitty book, whether it was fiction or non.

 

--Mike

[The High Heat]

creative nonfiction

All non-fiction is creative.

[OOO]

If you think that is bad, you should have seen me when I found out Charlie Kaufman doesn't have a twin brother!

[Lodestar]

All non-fiction is creative.

 

Thank you, Zen master.

 

I'm also sick of this debate. It's a genre name, a classification. It's what we study when we're not studying fiction or poetry or drama.

[yermom]

I bought the book before the "Frey is a fucking poser" debacle started but never got around to reading it because I was turned off once the deception was revealed. Did he get to keep whatever bank he'd made? This was the book the publisher offered refunds on, right? Did Frey have to return any money? I think he should have made assloads of donations to addiction recovery programs as a sort of penance.

 

I think Tom Cruise should call Oprah and apologize for jumping on her couch.

I think Tom Cruise should call all of us and apologize for being such a douche bag.