Imagine if, after you read his book “It’s Not About
the Bike,” you found out that Lance Armstrong never had
cancer, just a bad case of the flu that caused him to lose a little
bit of weight. Or if you had been reduced to tears by
“Tuesdays With Morrie,” only to later learn that Morrie
was not a real person, but was instead the name of Mitch
Albom’s hamster.
Now imagine that there is a book that sold more copies last year
than any book whose title didn’t start with the words
“Harry Potter.” Imagine that this book rocketed to No.
1 on the New York Times best-seller list after Oprah came down from
the heavens to anoint it to her Book Club, and has stayed on the
best-seller list for the last 15 weeks.
Imagine that this book has been marketed as a
“memoir,” putting it in the same nonfiction category as
“It’s Not About the Bike” and “Tuesdays
With Morrie.” Imagine that this book’s message of
redemption and of overcoming adversity through inner personal
strength brought you to tears when you read it, as Oprah said it
did for members of her staff.
Now imagine that this book was shown this week by the Web site
The Smoking Gun to be about as factually accurate as the guy in
that FedEx commercial who thinks his company gets “French
benefits.” Well, as you may have guessed, that is exactly
what happened last week when James Frey’s literary sensation
“A Million Little Pieces,” which his publisher
describes as “fiercely honest and deeply affecting … one of
the most graphic and immediate books ever to be written about
addiction and recovery,” was investigated by The Smoking
Gun.
The investigation began after the Web site was curiously unable
to find a mug shot of Frey that would have corresponded to any of
the graphic descriptions of drug-fueled arrests in the book. It
turns out that many of the critical sequences in the book were
“embellished” (Frey’s word) to the point of being
“lies” (my word).
For example, Frey describes an instance when, high on crack, he
hit a police officer with his car and had to be forcibly dragged
from his vehicle, resulting in multiple felony charges and, later,
significant jail time. Problem is, none of the officers in that
particular Ohio county remember such an incident occurring. Police
records show that the only incident Frey could possibly be talking
about is when he was arrested for driving under the influence after
he drove his car onto a curb at 5 mph. The record indicates that he
was “polite and cooperative at all times,” and that he
was released on $733 cash bond after spending less than five hours
in jail.
In an even scummier example, Frey completely fabricates his own
involvement in the tragic death of two teen girls whose car was hit
by a train in his Michigan hometown when he was in high school. He
pretends that one of the girls involved was his only friend, and
that somehow the entire town blamed him for the accident, which
became one of the reasons he turned to drugs and alcohol.
And yet after the scandal broke, Oprah still felt the need to
come down from on high to tell Larry King, “The underlying
message of redemption in James Frey’s memoir still resonates
with me.” Frey himself told King, “A memoir literally
means my story. A memoir is a subjective retelling of events. … I
don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate to say
I’ve conned anyone.” I think most people would find it
exceedingly appropriate, but what do I know? I, too, thought people
got French benefits.
Americans are always desperate for the next new inspiration.
Lance Armstrong, Morrie Schwartz, Joel Osteen ““ these people
are all famous because of their ability to help us cope with
everyday worries or the hardships of our own lives by setting an
example.
Frey apparently wanted to join this pantheon by exaggerating the
hardships of his own life in order to look like a better messenger
of redemption. What makes his deceit even worse is that he was
dealing with drug addiction ““ a terrifyingly serious
affliction for millions of Americans that requires no
embellishment. When a bestselling author fakes the details of his
own addictions, he paints an inaccurate picture of what addiction
is really like for the 3.5 million people to date who have bought
his book. But who cares? According to Frey, a memoir is just a
novel that you write yourself into.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to write my own
“memoir” that I’ll excerpt for you right here.
It’s tentatively called, “My Afternoon With James Frey:
A Memoir of Harrowing Proportions.” Here it goes: “I
left the two gorgeous supermodels half-naked in my apartment with a
promise that I’d be back later, because I had promised Frey
that I’d meet him at Brad Pitt’s house. When I got
there, James was trying to hit on the 57-year-old gardener, Miguel,
but he saw me and walked over to shake my hand. I decked him in the
face for sanctimoniously lying to the American people. Just then,
terrorists opened fire on us from across the street. I heroically
pulled out my semiautomatic to fight for America’s freedom
…”
I still haven’t figured out how it ends. Maybe Frey can
help me. Then I’ll make Oprah’s Book Club for sure.
E-mail Dan at datherton@media.ucla.edu and he’ll name
the gruff custodian with a heart of gold after you in his upcoming
memoirs. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.