 A Million Little Questions about James Frey's "Million Little
Pieces"
The Smoking Gun was the first to uncover the lies
and inconsistencies behind James Frey's story. See their article from
January 8, 2006 "A
Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey's Fiction Addition"
After The Smoking Gun exposed many discrepancies
in James Frey's memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," the Oprah Winfrey
Show scrambled to find out the truth behind the lies in this supposed
non-fiction memoir about drug addiction. As is turns out, James Frey
fabricated or embellished many of the details of his addition, his
arrests, and his so called status as an "out law wanted in three
states." To set the record straight, Oprah invited journalists Frank
Rich and Richard Cohen, Poynter Institute fellow Roy Peter Clark, Joel
Stein, Stanley Crouch and Maureen Dowd, James Frey himself, and Nan
Talese, the publisher of A Million Little Pieces, to be on The
Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about the controversy behind the book.
Here are some excerpts of what the experts are saying
about James Frey from Oprah's show with which aired on January 26, 2006:
Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist, said
"anyone can sort of put out something that sort of looks true, smells a
little bit like truth but, in fact, is in some way fictionalized."
Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist, said
James Frey is "the liar whose memoir turns out to have a good deal of
fiction alongside fact."
Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar and professor at the Poynter Institute school for journalists,
said "I think there needs to be...
truth in advertising. When James writes, "Remember the truth. It's all
that matters." That's such a powerful, powerful statement in addiction,
in recovery, in journalism, in race relations, and personal relations,
that I think the important thing that you're doing today is taking that
pendulum which says that "memoir is truthful except for the parts that
are lies" and you're challenging publishers to label what's going on in
the book."
Joel Stein, Time magazine staff writer, said "It's wrong
and immoral to pass off a piece of fiction as a memoir, and I wouldn't
do it. You know, I felt like he was a liar and a weasel. But the more I
thought about it, I still loved the book. When I found out a lot of it
had been made up, it didn't really change how I felt about the text. But
it certainly changed how I felt about the author."
Stanley Crouch New York Daily News
columnist "Is he a liar alone? Or was he coerced by Doubleday [publisher
of A Million Little Pieces] into becoming a bigger liar? That's
the real question."
Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist "James Frey very clearly
lied to promote his book and I don't think that should get the Oprah
seal of approval. It's just very disappointing that the publishing house
doesn't care. They're just counting their money. And readers don't care.
It's gone to the top of the bestseller list. But somebody has to stand
up for truth. This is not a close call."
Full article and view video clips
of Oprah's interview with James Frey, author of "A Million Little
Pieces" and center of this controversy. |
