A Million Little Lies…that’s ok
James Frey has recently encountered immense criticism for embellishing the truth in his memoir A Million Little Pieces.
A Million Little Pieces has sold more than 3.5 million copies and after it was picked by Oprah Winfrey to be a part of her book club the book has spent more than 15 weeks atop the The New York Times nonfiction paperback best seller list.
Shortly after Frey’s appearance on Oprah, The Smoking Gun ran a 25 plus page piece on its website about Frey’s embellishment entitled A Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey’s Fiction Addiction.
The Smoking Gun’s story focused on the criminal background Frey claimed to have in the book. The Smoking Gun had planned only to search for a mug shot of Frey for their website, but they became further interested when they found a lack of mug shots. They then dug in for an investigation that left Frey pegged as a liar.
Frey is not the first author to embellish a memoir.
Augusten Burroughs’ 2002 memoir Running With Scissors proved to have falsities. He was even sued by the family that raised him, which feels it was badly portrayed in his childhood memoir.
Books like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers and Julie and Julia by Julie Powell come with introductions that basically say, “This book is true, except for the parts I made up.� After all, who can be expected to remember word-for-word a conversation they had three months or five years ago?
Are people so upset over Frey’s lies because he was on Oprah? Many people say the large number of copies he has sold is due to Oprah.
Or is it because he won’t fully admit that he lied? There are no disclaimers on A Million Little Pieces that say “Part of this is made up.�
Perhaps people are so upset because the book felt so honest. Even Oprah said at the end of the book that she wanted to meet the man who had lived this life. His book is intriguing and gut wrenching. The part where he has two root canals filled with out Novocain made us clench and cringe for him. It turns out that he only had one root canal and we’re not sure if that was with Novocain or without.
But to us, it doesn’t really matter. Sure, he probably should have called it a novel instead of a memoir. However we may have never even heard of his book had he called it a novel. The fact that there are non-truths in the book doesn’t take away from what a fantastic read it was. Frey’s voice stayed with us for days after finishing the book. It caused us to rush out and buy My Friend Leonard, which to us was just as wonderful as Pieces.
We doubt that there are many completely factual memoirs out there. There are probably small lies in every memoir.
To us, if the story is a good one and the writer knows how to draw the reader in, then go ahead, throw in some fabrications. The truth will come out somewhere, and if we want, we can read that too.
This is an editorial I wrote for Opinion Writing.
I think people are upset, at least I am, is because there are people who really are leading lives of desperation who do not have the talent or will to write their story and end their misery. Single mother addicted to meth, children abused, seniors ignored and abused, it’s a long list. This guy gives us the false hope that all will be ok, when many in this country or the world will suffer and die without any chance of reaching their potential, be it because of policy, ignorance or neglect.
Programs to help are being curtailed, more and more have no health insurance.
This guy implies all will be ok if you just get your act together and overcome your problems. Many can not.
Words by cowpoke on February 21, 2006 at 1:54 pm | #
Cowpoke, Have you read the book?
Words by Jaime on February 21, 2006 at 10:42 pm | #
Oh yea
Words by cowpoke on February 21, 2006 at 11:39 pm | #
ok, just checking. I feel that there are bigger lies out there that actually impact our lives. We should be more concerned with those lies than some book.
The Smoking Gun should do a report on our current administration. If they are so good at digging up dirt, then they should dig up some dirt that matters. There are plenty of lies in the whole Valerie Plame incident, some which, had they not been told, we might not be in the current situation with that “camel fucker in Iraq.”
Words by Jaime on February 22, 2006 at 6:40 pm | #
The problem is you don’t even need to dig up dirt on the adminstration there is enough shit out there already we could easily impeach dumb fuck Bush over the shit he has done you know if we impeached a clinton for gettin some head we could impeach bush for doing everything he has done that is the problem with americans today they are to worried about some guy who told a few fibs for entertainment purposes then trying to fix what is actaully going wrong in our country and who the fuck ever said memiors has anything to do with truth has any body ever seen the movie Big Fish sounds to me like that is all the guy did
Words by Glenn on February 23, 2006 at 2:14 pm | #