In her hugely successful memoir, Olivia Saves the Circus, Olivia gives a virtuoso account to her school class of how she single-handedly rescued a circus performance (all the performers were sick with ear infections, she claims) by doing everything herself. The book is replete with astonishing but true accounts of Olivia the Lion Tamer, Olivia the Queen of the Trapeze and Olivia and her Amazing Trained Dogs. At the end, Olivia’s teacher suspects something and the following exchange takes place.
In his hugely successful memoir, A Million Little Pieces, James Frey gives a virtuoso account of his life of crime and drug abuse. The book is replete with astonishing but true accounts of Frey getting a root canal without anesthesia, Frey involved in a fatal train accident, and Frey in jail for desperate crimes. At the end, The Smoking Gun provided “detailed evidence”:http://www.thesmokinggun.com/jamesfrey/0104061jamesfrey1.html that Frey’s “memoir” is in fact a highly fictionalized — not to say falsified — version of events. The “following exchange”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/11/books/11memo.html?ex=1294635600&en=d54d1a2e5fa09232&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss takes place between Doubleday, Frey’s publisher, and the _New York Times_:
Two days after an investigative report published online presented strong evidence that significant portions of James Frey’s best-selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” were made up, the book’s publisher issued a statement saying that, in essence, it did not really matter. … “Memoir is a personal history whose aim is to illuminate, by way of example, events and issues of broader social consequence,” said a statement issued by Doubleday … “By definition, it is highly personal. In the case of Mr. Frey, we decided ‘A Million Little Pieces’ was his story, told in his own way, and he represented to us that his version of events was true to his recollections.”
Olivia would be proud.
{ 19 comments }
Barry 01.11.06 at 4:02 pm
“The book is replete with astonishing but true accounts of Frey getting a root canal without anesthesia,”
Been there, done that. It went by the name ‘Army Dentistry’.
Steve LaBonne 01.11.06 at 4:08 pm
In his “hugely successful” Presidency, George W. Bush gives a virtuoso account of [fill in the blank, there are so many choices]… [which] is in fact a highly fictionalized—not to say falsified—version of events. He represented to us that his version of events was true to his recollections.
pp 01.11.06 at 4:35 pm
who cares if it was imbellished, improvised, or entirely made up. Call it fiction from the first person perspective. Would that make it better? More readable? More inspirational? I say kudo’s on fooling that intolerable Oprah into schlepping it on national TV.
Iron Lungfish 01.11.06 at 5:10 pm
And yet Olivia is awesome. I am torn.
Kieran Healy 01.11.06 at 5:19 pm
who cares if it was imbellished, improvised, or entirely made up.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to make this case. The short answer is that it matters whether you’re telling the truth. Besides, you can’t deny that a large measure of the buzz surrounding the book (and thus its big financial success) comes from the author’s repeated claims that it was for real.
Also, your yiddish needs work.
pp 01.11.06 at 5:52 pm
Dan Brown claims that the premise of “the da vinci code” is completely true. It is not. Anyone with a decent knowledge of history can debunk most of it in a few hours of research. Still a great and interesting read. No one is offering refunds for people who thougth it was “real” only to find out it was at best loosely based on facts and generally fabricated. A certain laker once bragged about sleeping with 20,000 women in his biography. Not possible. Anyone think Bill Clinton shared his complete unedited version of his life in his bio?
Kieran Healy 01.11.06 at 6:05 pm
No one is offering refunds for people who thougth it was “real†only to find out it was at best loosely based on facts and generally fabricated. … Anyone think Bill Clinton shared his complete unedited version of his life in his bio?
The point is not whether the _book_ is less entertaining when you find out that large tracts of it are not true as claimed by the author — though, again, it’s never fun to find you’ve been lied to. What really matters is how learning this affects your assessment of the author as more or less of a bullshitter. Frey was personally getting a lot of credit — eating (and probably sleeping) out on the strength of all these Amazing Yet True Stories. But now when he shows up at parties or on talk shows he can be introduced not as “James Frey, talented author of this Amazing Memoir of his Astonishing Life” but “James Frey, talented author with a good line in bullshit.”
pp 01.11.06 at 7:48 pm
Most people believe that schlep refers only to the act of walking. This is incorrect.
Schlep intones a movement of a clunky or ungainly object or walking with a burden. Moving a poor product is commonly referred to as schlepping it(maybe originating in traveling salespeoples vernacular?). It is referred to as such by speakers who have had more potted brisket than corned brisket. My use of the term is derisive of Oprahs style of pushing certain literature and taking Borders Bargain items to the top of the NYT best sellers list.
Kieran Healy 01.11.06 at 8:14 pm
I am happy to concede the schlep point.
Tom T. 01.11.06 at 8:17 pm
Frey’s memoir was so outlandish at some points that it could only succeed on the basis of a “truth is stranger than fiction” suspension of disbelief. In that light, his story had a certain raw power stemming from the author’s implied personal authority. If his story is fictional, then it collapses of its own weight into melodrama and bathos.
KCinDC 01.11.06 at 8:57 pm
Is Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes the same as Don Quixote by Pierre Menard?
Tom T. 01.11.06 at 9:45 pm
Frey is on Larry King’s show now. He’s not disputing any of The Smoking Gun’s points. He’s simply trying to minimize their importance, saying that those revelations only affect small portions of the book and do not weaken its “essential truth.”
Other than the “essence,” it’s now very hard to tell what portions of Frey’s book are true. For instance, his central thesis is the provocative notion that he recovered from alcohol and crack addiction without accepting the precepts of any 12-step program. At this point, one has to wonder whether this basic assertion is true; indeed, was he ever really a crackhead at all?
MQ 01.11.06 at 11:32 pm
Frey’s book is false to the core — the picture of addiction and redemption it presents is complete BS. It makes addiction and recovery seem like a macho, dramatic movie of the week. It is made up start to finish. He is a smart PR guy though, clever to say that it is just a few details that are off.
The best commentary is by John Dolan, first reviewing the book:
http://www.exile.ru/2003-May-29/book_review.html
Then predicting it would be found to be completely false:
http://www.exile.ru/2005-December-15/a_million_bottles_of_beer_on_the_wall.html
mhum 01.12.06 at 1:32 am
The John Dolan reviews are quite good. So are these two reactions from Neal Pollack: the first from when Frey’s book first came out, the second after the sham was revealed.
Tim Worstall 01.12.06 at 6:16 am
Is this the time to say “Fake but Accurate”?
Actually, given John Dolan’s reviews it’s not even that, is it?
Tim 01.12.06 at 2:11 pm
pp’s Yiddish may be ok, but his Greek sure needs help: kudos being neither plural nor possessive, needs no apostrophe. But who cares, as long as it sounds good, right?
pp 01.12.06 at 2:40 pm
Tim,
Mea culpa (latin). It is my typing most oft that will betray my best grammatical intentions.
Kieran,
I have somewhat reconsidered thanks to an appearance on Larry King now that I can see what a prat this guy really is. He really believed himself. Hang him high. There is a certain “based on actual events” movie of the week quality here that does take away from the inspirational aspect of what he is trying to say. Of course no press is bad press. He will probably end up selling another million or so.
Kevin 01.12.06 at 3:28 pm
I’m frankly surprised anyone believed a word past the first page, where he (supposedly) regains consciousness on an airplane to find himself covered in bodily fluids – chiefly blood – with a “hole in his face”.
Anyone who’s even remotely familiar with commercial airline travel should know he wouldn’t have made it past the security checkpoint in such a condition.
MQ 01.12.06 at 6:46 pm
“The John Dolan reviews are quite good. So are these two reactions from Neal Pollack…”
I read Salon, and an interesting note is that a while ago I noticed an article from Neal Pollack on that site about how he was having trouble paying for day care for his kid. James Frey, on the other hand, is a multi-millionaire. Draw your own conclusions, kiddies.
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