POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Oprah says it’s ok for us to like James Frey again

When the rise and fall of James Frey occurred in 2006 I was infuriated... with everyone but James Frey. I've always wanted to address it, but it hasn't been timely until now (my writing was limited to grocery lists in '06). Here's some background:

James Frey wrote a book, A Million Little Pieces, based on his journey through drug addiction and recovery. He didn't write it as a memoir, a novel or a self-help book. He just wrote a book... that someone wanted to publish. They published it as a memoir. As far as I'm concerned this was his only mistake. He should have spoken up about the genre... I guess.

Oprah read it, and then made it one of her book club selections, which is like a Pulitzer for writers that want to actually sell books that people will read. He was golden.

It really is a great book, next to no one disagrees with that to this day. His apparent contempt for punctuation alone earned my eternal thanks, and it got me through what I now see was a touch of postpartum. (I knew I was supposed to want to hold my baby, but I didn't want to hold my baby, but I knew I should hold my baby, so I forced myself to... with my baby in one hand and A Million Little Pieces in the other to fend off the boredom.)

I can remember thinking that I hoped no one thought every detail true and every line of dialogue verbatim. That would have been impossible, and obviously you would change the names of people you were in rehab with.

Guess Oprah didn't know. I think the frat boys at The Smoking Gun knew, but didn't care. Turns out he did change names, dramatize dialogue and rewrite some of his own truth (I wouldn't be surprised to learn "own truth" is a phrase owned by Harpo). Oprah defended him until she didn't. Frey found that out when he returned to her show for what he thought was a "discussion about truth in America". His publisher, Nan Talese, appeared with him. It turned out to be the "James Frey is a lying liar Mc-liarstein" show. The Smoking Gun guy was on, but I can't remember if it was live or memorex. I clearly remember video of a hodge-podge of people like Maureen Dowd and Joel Stein (yeah, the clip show dude) scolding him... on tape. The court of Oprah offers no right to confront your accuser. And with that the American literati exiled the leper, talent and looking at the big picture be damned. Here are his takes on the truth and the aftermath:

(Which you can read at my place because I don't know how to make videos show up on here.)

Kill Truck

KillTruck is a wife, mother, blogger and native midwesterner now living in Eastern Washington state. She writes about politics, pop culture, parenting, wifing and a few other subjects she has no authority to write about. She has macabre fascinations with prostitution and/or cannibalism. In her free time she enjoys eating and/or drinking her feelings, liveblogging Lifetime movies, thinking about Scott Brown and mocking things she doesn’t understand.

Website - More Posts