The Smoking Gun yesterday blew the lid off another literary scandal. Apparently fictionalizing your entire life story into something worse than what it is has become the new chic, completely unbeknownst to me. James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces is, according to TSG, fabricating or wildly overstating large portions of his life story. The book has sold over 3.5 million copies since Oprah Winfrey included it as an official selection of “Oprah’s Book Club”. Hell, even my roommate Jen told me just the other day what an incredible book it was, and that story can be repeated by almost everyone reading this I’d imagine.
Police reports, court records, interviews with law enforcement personnel, and other sources have put the lie to many key sections of Frey’s book. The 36-year-old author, these documents and interviews show, wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw “wanted in three states.”
In additon to these rap sheet creations, Frey also invented a role for himself in a deadly train accident that cost the lives of two female high school students. In what may be his book’s most crass flight from reality, Frey remarkably appropriates and manipulates details of the incident so he can falsely portray himself as the tragedy’s third victim. It’s a cynical and offensive ploy that has left one of the victims’ parents bewildered. “As far as I know, he had nothing to do with the accident,” said the mother of one of the dead girls. “I figured he was taking license…he’s a writer, you know, they don’t tell everything that’s factual and true.”
I think we can safely say how that last bit is true about nearly everyone we know. The problem for people like me, who have unfortunately actually lived out some sembleance of the horrific tales told by Mr. Frey, is that it makes us look bad when he starts telling our stories. It’s almost as if he overheard me talking to a friend in a diner somewhere ten years ago or happened to sneak into one of those anonymous 12-step meetings. I feel fairly violated all around right now. Best you should go read The Smoking Gun’s six-week investigation report and expose. I gotta go to work.
