I remember my sister reading A Million Little Pieces when it first
came out. She raved about it, saying
similar things to what Oprah said about it, that it is so real and
intense. She noted how poignant the book
was, and she highly recommended it to me. Then I heard something about how Oprah was
calling out James Frey for falsifying his stories. At the time, I thought it was so ridiculous
for someone to make up life experiences and try to pass them off as reality,
especially in an age where the Internet can expose all. Yet, I was still intrigued to read the book
anyway—after all, what a brilliant writer Frey must be to draw all of those
readers in and make them believe his stories.
I never did get around to
reading A Million Little Pieces. I was, however, very interested in revisiting
what happened with this book, so I read the Smoking Gun article about it with
the intention of writing my response to it this week. At first I was stunned at how much TSG
uncovered about Frey’s past. Then I
realized that all you need is Google and you can figure out just about anything
about anyone. As I kept reading through
the article, I just felt more and more embarrassed for Frey. Surely he anticipated that it would be fairly
easy for people to find him out, even though all of his “acquaintances” in the
book were either “dead” or “missing”?
Criminal records and police reports don’t lie.
This lead me to wonder why
anyone would go through the trouble of fabricating an entire book about their
life, if there’s even the slightest chance that their lies could be
exposed. Such a great writer, like Frey,
must be intelligent enough to foresee that possibility. Why risk that, then? Obviously Frey knew that his book would be a
hit with readers, especially if they thought that it was a true story. People love reading stories of triumph, or by
someone they can tell has overcome the past that they’re writing about. It’s one thing to write a book about a very
flawed, troubled character—but it’s more fascinating to people when that
character is a real, living, breathing human being. TSG even pointed out that Frey’s book was
rejected 17 times before it was finally picked up; it was only published then
because he presented it as a memoir rather than a piece of fiction. I can understand why a writer would find it
worthwhile to write a fake memoir: it’ll be published, the public will love it,
and Oprah will promote it because it’s so fascinating.
There’s such an ethical problem
here, though. I’m sure that, somewhere
in the world, at some point in history, there has existed someone who lived a
life similar to the one Frey wrote about in A
Million Little Pieces. But that life
was never Frey’s. To claim that it was
made him a liar, unreliable in the eyes of his readers. It doesn’t change the fact that people love
the story. I’ve heard/read that people
still have continued to purchase/read the book, even to this day. However, it does raise the issue of whether
or not it’s acceptable to publish lies and market them as the truth. Would it be more ethical if Frey had
published the book as a memoir under a pseudonym? Would that be less of a lie? Would people have been less offended and hurt
if that book had come out as the true story of John Smith and not of James
Frey? I have to wonder where people—readers,
writers, publishers, and critics alike—draw the line in terms of honesty in
writing. Personally, I think I’d be more
forgiving if the book had been written under a pseudonym because that’s
technically a “fake” name, so it seems there’s no harm done, really. What thoughts does everyone else have about
this?
Resource
The Smoking Gun. (2006). A million little lies: Exposing James Frey's fiction addiction. Retrieved from http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/million-little-lies
