Despite recent revelations that Million Little Pieces author James Frey fabricated much of his addiction recovery “memoir”, the book continues to sell on both the brick and mortar level, as well as in the e-universe.
Which just goes to show you how Americans are still gullible lemmings, coming to the my book store like zombies from a George Romero film and plunking down their credit cards and purchasing the tome under the misguided notion that the “central message” of his recovery from drug and alcohol abuse is worth buying the book.
While that may be true, he still lied, which is what an alcoholic is: a master magician, conjuring stories to hide their prevarications. He has written a three page addendum to his book (and which was posted on Random House’s website) that will be added in subsequent reprints of the “memoir”.
As I wrote earlier, he now admits that the narrative flow was more important than journalistic truth. His lies included the invention of a three-month jail term, exaggerated other run-ins with law officials and distorted his role in a train crash that killed a high school classmate. He also acknowledges making himself appear “tougher and more daring and more aggressive than in reality I was, or I am.”
The book was shopped to publishers as both a fiction title and a memoir, but his literary agent, Kassie Evashevski, has said there was only brief discussion of shopping the book as fiction, out of respect for his family's privacy. But even as it was published in 2003, there were rumors that much of what Frey wrote was fiction.
In the new Authors Note, Frey defends his decision about how he wrote about his recovery, covering, saying “People cope with adversity in many different ways, ways that are deeply personal. My mistake, and it is one I deeply regret, is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience.”
He also mentions that while he used medical records, therapists' notes and personal journals, he decided to use his memory in writing his tale. This should’ve been the publisher’s first indication that maybe what Frey was writing was coming from a fuzzy, drug addled recollections.
Like Mary Karr -author of two memoirs (The Liars Club and Cherry) - and one of his toughest critics, says that while “He keeps saying there's a great debate about fact and fiction in memoirs, but the only debate is in his mind. It's not really that hard; you just don't make stuff up.”
Amen.
Which just goes to show you how Americans are still gullible lemmings, coming to the my book store like zombies from a George Romero film and plunking down their credit cards and purchasing the tome under the misguided notion that the “central message” of his recovery from drug and alcohol abuse is worth buying the book.
While that may be true, he still lied, which is what an alcoholic is: a master magician, conjuring stories to hide their prevarications. He has written a three page addendum to his book (and which was posted on Random House’s website) that will be added in subsequent reprints of the “memoir”.
As I wrote earlier, he now admits that the narrative flow was more important than journalistic truth. His lies included the invention of a three-month jail term, exaggerated other run-ins with law officials and distorted his role in a train crash that killed a high school classmate. He also acknowledges making himself appear “tougher and more daring and more aggressive than in reality I was, or I am.”
The book was shopped to publishers as both a fiction title and a memoir, but his literary agent, Kassie Evashevski, has said there was only brief discussion of shopping the book as fiction, out of respect for his family's privacy. But even as it was published in 2003, there were rumors that much of what Frey wrote was fiction.
In the new Authors Note, Frey defends his decision about how he wrote about his recovery, covering, saying “People cope with adversity in many different ways, ways that are deeply personal. My mistake, and it is one I deeply regret, is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience.”
He also mentions that while he used medical records, therapists' notes and personal journals, he decided to use his memory in writing his tale. This should’ve been the publisher’s first indication that maybe what Frey was writing was coming from a fuzzy, drug addled recollections.
Like Mary Karr -author of two memoirs (The Liars Club and Cherry) - and one of his toughest critics, says that while “He keeps saying there's a great debate about fact and fiction in memoirs, but the only debate is in his mind. It's not really that hard; you just don't make stuff up.”
Amen.
I am split on this issue because while it is plainly obvious that Frey is a liar and that he has profited a great deal from his lies, I can't say that his embellishments are abnormal in the world of memoirs. If you've ever read a David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs book you know that these narratives are presented as actual, real occurrences that happened in these people's lives but that they will quietly admit that they have exaggerated the facts so as to make it a better read. A memoir is not so much a dry, clear-cut account of facts but an interpretation of one's experiences. So while I can't consider myself a fan of James Frey because he lied, I am still a fan of David Sedaris because he lies (and he's really funny). If that makes sense...
ReplyDelete