James Frey's second appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, January 2006It’s been over a year since author James Frey appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, tail between his legs, and admitted to fudging many of the details in his bestselling memoir of addiction and rehabilitation “A Million Little Pieces.” I watched Winfrey berate Frey for lying to her and to the millions of people who bought his book after she included it in her monthly book club, and I read angry reactions to Frey’s admissions from other authors and journalists. Frey lied about his own experience, and the furor over it still baffles me in light of the catastrophic lies we hear about on the news that affect millions of people around the world.
On Jan. 8, 2006, The Smoking Gun website revealed discrepancies between Frey’s actual run-ins with the law and the account in his book. Frey appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live to discuss the allegations and defend himself. Winfrey called in and spoke on air in Frey’s defense, “The underlying message of redemption in James Frey’s memoir still resonates with me,” she said. “And I know that it resonates with millions of other people who have read the book.”
But a couple of weeks later Winfrey recanted her support of Frey and apologized to her audience for defending him and giving them the impression that truth was unimportant to her. The talk show host summoned all of her moral authority and scolded Frey and his publisher, Nan Talese for an hour. But it seemed Winfrey was more concerned with damage control and buffing her own image than she was with showing Frey the error of his ways or inciting a fact-checking revolution at the publishing houses.
The controversy was overblown, and the lies Frey told in his memoir are insignificant compared to the lies the American public is told by its government. Frank Rich of The New York Times called lies such as those in Frey’s book “harmless diversion.” The trails of deceit and doublespeak crisscrossing the political landscape concern him much more. Rich observed, “It’s as if the country is living in a permanent state of suspension of disbelief.”
Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s connection to Osama bin Laden and 9-11, secret prisons and the use of torture, the indictment of powerful politicians and botching the Hurricane Katrina situation before, during and after the storm are some examples of recent governmental deceit and/or incompetence. Sure these failings were closely covered, but the outcry over Frey’s mendacity begs the question why we even bother with such paltry untruths when lies are being told at the highest levels resulting in the deaths of thousands around the globe?
I think the message of Frey’s work is still meaningful to people even if it is not entirely factual. I didn’t personally enjoy “A Million Little Pieces”; it was too graphic and repetitive, but I believe people can be enlightened, validated and encouraged by fictional writing, perhaps even if it is labeled nonfiction. Take the example of Rigoberta Menchú’s biography, which documented the repression and murder of Guatemalan peasants during that country’s 36-year civil war. After being confronted, Menchú admitted to lying about some details in her book. The injustices and atrocities she details in her book didn’t happen to her family as she wrote, but tens of thousands of people in Guatemala did suffer in the horrific ways she described. For me and for many people, the power of her message remained intact even after her lies were exposed. “I, Rigoberta Menchú” succeeded in opening eyes around the world to a bloody and unequal struggle of the very weak against the brutally strong even if it was not purely biographical. I think people who identified with Frey’s narrative in “A Million Little Pieces” probably feel the same way. People struggling with drug and alcohol addiction may be greatly helped by Frey’s story, and for them, its fabrications are utterly irrelevant.
So what was Frey’s punishment for duping millions? Well, his book is was on the New York Times bestseller list for 44 weeks, and for months bookstores around the country couldn’t keep it on the shelves. “A Million Little Pieces” sold over 4.5 million copies, and sales of Frey’s second book, “My Friend Leonard”, which picks up where MLP leaves off, benefited greatly from the controversy. So after being humiliated on TV and getting slammed by fellow writers, Frey is crying his way to the bank to cash his enormous checks.
