Almost everyone embellishes their own life to make themselves look better. If not by changing things then by omitting them. Its human nature and in most cases it is probably not intentionally done.
It's also been well-established that the brain is unreliable when it comes to memories. People unwittingly "recreate" memories or mis-remember things to paint themselves in a more flattering light.
That said, I think the publisher's willingness to refund the price of the book is an attempt to protect itself from further liability...Since they didn't include the standard disclaimer, couldn't they be sued for fraud?
Almost everyone embellishes their own life to make themselves look better. If not by changing things then by omitting them. Its human nature and in most cases it is probably not intentionally done.
It's also been well-established that the brain is unreliable when it comes to memories. People unwittingly "recreate" memories or mis-remember things to paint themselves in a more flattering light.
That said, I think the publisher's willingness to refund the price of the book is an attempt to protect itself from further liability...Since they didn't include the standard disclaimer, couldn't they be sued for fraud?
Honestly, I think they fear Oprah. If she was not envolved they would never have offered a refund.
How I wish some of these reporters would turn their skepticism and tenacity toward some of our elected officials and Corporate CEOs.
A "memoir" is hardly a clinical, wholly factual account of a life.
I think the guy is completely full of shit when he goes on Oprah or Larry King and talks about the importance of "honesty" and being true to yorself and your work, but it sounds like he is a hell of a writer regardless. Only in this modern age (and I think, specifically in America) does something as piffling as this constitute a scandal or controversey.
Almost everyone embellishes their own life to make themselves look better. If not by changing things then by omitting them. Its human nature and in most cases it is probably not intentionally done.
It's also been well-established that the brain is unreliable when it comes to memories. People unwittingly "recreate" memories or mis-remember things to paint themselves in a more flattering light.
That said, I think the publisher's willingness to refund the price of the book is an attempt to protect itself from further liability...Since they didn't include the standard disclaimer, couldn't they be sued for fraud?
Honestly, I think they fear Oprah. If she was not envolved they would never have offered a refund.
Hahaha, nah, shit is just weak to try and pawn off some made up shit as your story.
Riiiight. You never read memoirs, biographies, nor autobriographies, do you? Much of it is bullshit, or stretched, or whatever. Come on now, just cause this guy got put out there like that...? Investigate any memoir. Come on.
I think the guy is completely full of shit when he goes on Oprah or Larry King and talks about the importance of "honesty" and being true to yorself and your work,
"Jesus, God, Honesty, Family, uh, Weapons of Mass Destruction... like, and stuff."
Are you trying to tell me a drug addict lied??????????!!
I don't belive it. That is most outrageous thing I have ever heard. Why would a drug addict lie?? To get money??? No way!!! This must be a first.
Until now I have taken all self a grandising autobiographys as absolute truth, now when reading anything I will have to ask myself; what is the authors agenda?
I think I will just quit reading books.
Dan
I think the point is that his claims to drug addiction are possibly bogus as well as most of the other stuff. There have been so many fishy fictional autobiographies and fact-based novels swimming around recently that I can scarcely distinguish between them. I don't blame him - if I was writing this kind of ghoulish car-crash lit then I'd embellish the fuck out of it. Sensationionalism sells.
i've been to treatment 3 times and first time i paged thru dude's book i was like: fuck him...i just spent a month in a facility of men and women who have been as hard as this dude...i realise that not everyone goes to treatment and nearly all families have to deal with someone who is an addict, so a book on the subject is very interesting...dare i say important, but something smelled whack to me fromthe git go about this guy...
Hahaha, nah, shit is just weak to try and pawn off some made up shit as your story.
Riiiight. You never read memoirs, biographies, nor autobriographies, do you? Much of it is bullshit, or stretched, or whatever.
Yes, I've read half a dozen of them at least.
Much of it is stretched, or some of it is stretched? Again, I'm not a fucking idiot, I know these things are not 100% accurate, and again, what makes this book so popular is how incredible the things he supposedly went through.
This isn't a case of "oh, I should have said I met her in 1985 not 1984", it's more like "I ran over a cop" which is complete and total bullshit. And those kind of over the top stories are littered throughout that book ad-nauseum.
Hazelden can't talk about it under patient confidentiality, all charachters who could corroborate ANYTHING are conveiniently dead or disappeared, every one of his crimes have been exposed as bullshit or blown ridiculously out of proportion, etc.
Dude probably lied about the whole thing.
Fuck this, I'm done. This is a stupid debate to be having.
Hahaha, nah, shit is just weak to try and pawn off some made up shit as your story.
Riiiight. You never read memoirs, biographies, nor autobriographies, do you? Much of it is bullshit, or stretched, or whatever.
Yes, I've read half a dozen of them at least. Much of it is stretched, or some of it is stretched? Again, I'm not a fucking idiot, I know these things are not 100% accurate, and again, what makes this book so popular is how incredible the things he supposedly went through. This isn't a case of "oh, I should have said I met her in 1985 not 1984", it's more like "I ran over a cop" which is complete and total bullshit.
And George Washington chopped down the cherry tree.
A lot of stuff is bullshit. Just enjoy it as a good story.
Hahaha, nah, shit is just weak to try and pawn off some made up shit as your story.
Riiiight. You never read memoirs, biographies, nor autobriographies, do you? Much of it is bullshit, or stretched, or whatever.
Yes, I've read half a dozen of them at least.
Much of it is stretched, or some of it is stretched? Again, I'm not a fucking idiot, I know these things are not 100% accurate, and again, what makes this book so popular is how incredible the things he supposedly went through.
This isn't a case of "oh, I should have said I met her in 1985 not 1984", it's more like "I ran over a cop" which is complete and total bullshit.
And George Washington chopped down the cherry tree.
A lot of stuff is bullshit. Just enjoy it as a good story.
Graf, peep this out: Millions of people bought this book and read it under the pretense that it was at least as close to an actual account of the author's life as possible. That clearly isn't the case now. Readers have every right to be upset that they paid for and spent time reading something that isn't true. I especially feel for people who went/are going through similar things and instead of getting confirmation of hope/a way to overcome, they got some suckoff's fantasyland choose-you-own-adventure story! (In so many words)
Hahaha, nah, shit is just weak to try and pawn off some made up shit as your story.
Riiiight. You never read memoirs, biographies, nor autobriographies, do you? Much of it is bullshit, or stretched, or whatever.
Yes, I've read half a dozen of them at least. Much of it is stretched, or some of it is stretched? Again, I'm not a fucking idiot, I know these things are not 100% accurate, and again, what makes this book so popular is how incredible the things he supposedly went through. This isn't a case of "oh, I should have said I met her in 1985 not 1984", it's more like "I ran over a cop" which is complete and total bullshit.
And George Washington chopped down the cherry tree.
A lot of stuff is bullshit. Just enjoy it as a good story.
Graf, peep this out: Millions of people bought this book and read it under the pretense that it was at least as close to an actual account of the author's life as possible. That clearly isn't the case now. Readers have every right to be upset that they paid for and spent time reading something that isn't true. I especially feel for people who went/are going through similar things and instead of getting confirmation of hope/a way to overcome, they got some suckoff's fantasyland choose-you-own-adventure story! (In so many words)
would it be different if it said "based on a true story"?
Plenty of people change their lives over totally fictional trash that litters the chain bookstores and supermarkets of this great nation. Now everyone's panties are in a bunch because this dude stretched the truth a little bit?
would it be different if it said "based on a true story"?
Plenty of people change their lives over totally fictional trash that litters the chain bookstores and supermarkets of this great nation. Now everyone's panties are in a bunch because this dude stretched the truth a little bit?
this thread is kind of disgusting
What if I wrote a book about my amazing success story founding and running Good Records in NYC? Complete bullshit, but it might inspire someone...
Larry, I'm surprised to see you in this thread. I have been inspired by many pieces of literature that are complete fiction. Good art has the power to do that.
Readers have every right to be upset that they paid for and spent time reading something that isn't true
Lord knows nobody should spend time reading something that isn't true
this is literature, not tv news people
I'm willing to bet that this book never makes the Oprah list if it was fiction.
I would totally disagree... I mean I don't keep up on what Oprah likes or doesn't but I would think that a powerful book with a positive message would make it regardless of its basis in fact.
The problem here is merely that the guy should have said "based on a true story"
Larry, I'm surprised to see you in this thread. I have been inspired by many pieces of literature that are complete fiction. Good art has the power to do that.
Jonny I think that the issue that this turns on (and I believe it to be legitimate) is that this was not presented as "literature" but as a factual account of this guys horrific life. The book doesn't even include a standard disclaimer in relation to "some names/events may be changed for whatever reason". The "power" of the book - as it is - is that they guy supposedly endured the gauntlet and came out the other side. As it turns out, the guantlet didn't really exist in any substantive way. He made up his numerous prison stays, his attack on a police officer, and it turns out attached himself to a tragic event that he had nothing to do with. I too have been moved/inspired by works of fiction (Kerouac, Hesse, Carver et al). If this had been presented as "roman a clef" there wouldn't really be anything to argue about. Nobody goes back and vetts Kerouac's novels, because although there are elements of reality in them, they are clearly fiction. Had Frey's book been presented that way, it would likely have had a similar effect on its readers, and he would have avoided this controversy.
Author James Frey confessed to Oprah Winfrey on Thursday that he made up details about every character in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces" and the talk show host apologized to her viewers, saying she felt "duped."[/b]
"I have been really embarrassed by this," said Winfrey, whose praise for Frey's book in September helped make it the top-selling book on nonfiction lists in the United States last year.
"I really feel duped," she told Frey on her television show. She said he had betrayed millions of viewers.
At one point early in the interview Frey said he still viewed the work as a memoir, not a novel. By the show's end Winfrey made him admit he lied.
"This hasn't been a great day for me," he said. "I feel like I came here and I have been honest with you. I have, you know, essentially admitted to ..."
"Lying," Winfrey interrupted.[/b]
"To lying," he said. "It's not an easy thing to do in front of an audience full of people and a lot of others watching on TV. ... If I come out of this experience with anything it's being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure I don't repeat them."
Winfrey began by apologizing to viewers for a telephone call she made to CNN's "Larry King Live" show on January 11, while King was interviewing Frey about the controversy. In the call Winfrey said that even though the facts were being questioned, the book "still resonates with me" and called the controversy "much ado about nothing."
"I regret that phone call," she told her viewers on Thursday. "I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that. That is not what I believe."
Sitting with Frey in side-by-side easy chairs, Winfrey quizzed the author point-by-point about his book that described his drug-and-alcohol addiction and the people hurt by it
"All the way through the book I altered details about every one of the characters," Frey said, to disguise true identities..[/b]
He spent two hours in jail, not 87 days, and the account of his breaking up with a woman who later committed suicide happened in a much shorter period of time, with their separation occurring while he was taking care of personal business in North Carolina, not while he was in jail, he said.
She committed suicide by slashing her wrists, he said, not by hanging herself.
The controversy over Frey's work has raged for weeks at a level rarely seen in U.S. literary circles, and the debate has even called into question the veracity of other memoir-like works published over the years.
Nan Talese, editorial director from Random House's Doubleday division, which published the book, appeared after Frey and told Winfrey the book went through the usual review process and "I absolutely believed what I read."
"I think this whole experience is very sad. It's very sad for you, it's very sad for us," she said, but "people do not remember the same way. And I thought, as a publisher, this is James' memory of the hell he went through and I believed it."
Asked if The Smoking Gun Web site, which first questioned the book, had accurately characterized the discrepancies, Frey said "I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate," adding they did "a good job."
Frey said he had developed an image of himself for the book as "being tougher than I was, badder than I was" as a "coping mechanism."
Winfrey asked if that was to make a better book or to make him a better person.
"Probably both," he answered.
Frey's book had been chosen by Winfrey for her reading club -- an honor which often turns books into best sellers. The book sold more than 1.77 million copies last year after being chosen by Winfrey.
On January 17 Winfrey chose Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's "Night" as her latest selection, sending the book, first published in the United States in 1960, to the top of best-seller lists.
Random House is a unit of German media conglomerate Bertelsman AG.
"It's not an easy thing to do in front of an audience full of people and a lot of others watching on TV. ... If I come out of this experience with anything it's being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure I don't repeat them."
I tried to give it a chance after reading about all this, but after a page or two I gave up and threw it in the trash. Harsh, I know, but what's the use if I can't discern fact from fiction?
My wife was like "do you still have that book? I wanted to read it."
"It's not an easy thing to do in front of an audience full of people and a lot of others watching on TV. ... If I come out of this experience with anything it's being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure I don't repeat them."
I tried to give it a chance after reading about all this, but after a page or two I gave up and threw it in the trash. Harsh, I know, but what's the use if I can't discern fact from fiction?
My wife was like "do you still have that book? I wanted to read it."
oots.
I checked it out in the bookstore to see if he is at least a decent writer. I read a couple of pages. He is not.
On January 17 Winfrey chose Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's "Night" as her latest selection, sending the book, first published in the United States in 1960, to the top of best-seller lists.
No, for real, there are a couple of key points regarding this book I feel are worth mentioning. I've had problems with the book since before it was outed as a fake, but now it's a whole new ball game and I get to wear a rainbow wig and wave a giant banner that says "I Told You So!".
First, misinformation about addiction kills addicts, straight up. Frey spreads his misinformation three fold in his book. From the Slate:
"For nonaddicts, Pieces reinforces the still dangerously prevalent notion that it's easy to spot a drug addict or an alcoholic???they're the ones bleeding from holes in their cheeks or getting beaten down by the police or doing hard time with killers and rapists. For those struggling with their own substance-abuse issues, Pieces sends the message that unless you've reached the depths Frey describes, you don't have anything to worry about???you're a Fraud. And if you do have a problem, you don't need to necessarily get treatment or look to others for support; all you need to do is "hold on." "
Second, anyone can write a good story, that's talent, but what makes it inspirational is when that shit's for real. Why did he shop that book to 17 different publishers as fiction and have it rejected before it got published as non-fiction? Because anyone can lie, exagerate, and tell hyped up "war stories" about addiction. It's funny how he's anti-12 step program but some of the basic principles behind these programs are honesty and humility, two things he seems to have a problem with. One might say Frey suffers from what doctor's call "dry drunk" syndrome, an addict or alcholic who abstains but does not have any recovery, basically still a lying, manipulitive, self centetered, self seeking, ego maniac except he's clean.
Third, if he's only admitting to what can be proven, what else is he lying about. Where there is smoke, there's fire.
Fourth, as I run in recovery circles, I've meet people a thousand times more inspirational than him, with or without his lies. The difference is that they have the humility and spirituality not to hype their pain up and try to make a buck off it. I've meet dudes dying of AIDS who stay clean from heroin knowing they're going to die, I knew a woman, an ex-prostitute, who had cancer and HIV and stayed clean AND got her masters degree before passing away. Frey's a fucking small fish with a big mouth in the world of inspirational recovering addicts.
If I seem a little to serious about this it's because to me this is serious. They were giving addicts this book in treatment, telling them to just "hold on", and shit like that. Giving people a book of lies! How many addicts died thinking "just hold on"? Or were deterred from treatment or 12 step programs because of his writing, only never to live long enough to hear it was all bullshit. Because people dying is about as real as it gets in my world, and using addicts have enough shit out there trying to kill their asses let alone bad information.
No, for real, there are a couple of key points regarding this book I feel are worth mentioning. I've had problems with the book since before it was outed as a fake, but now it's a whole new ball game and I get to wear a rainbow wig and wave a giant banner that says "I Told You So!".
First, misinformation about addiction kills addicts, straight up. Frey spreads his misinformation three fold in his book. From the Slate:
"For nonaddicts, Pieces reinforces the still dangerously prevalent notion that it's easy to spot a drug addict or an alcoholic???they're the ones bleeding from holes in their cheeks or getting beaten down by the police or doing hard time with killers and rapists. For those struggling with their own substance-abuse issues, Pieces sends the message that unless you've reached the depths Frey describes, you don't have anything to worry about???you're a Fraud. And if you do have a problem, you don't need to necessarily get treatment or look to others for support; all you need to do is "hold on." "
Second, anyone can write a good story, that's talent, but what makes it inspirational is when that shit's for real. Why did he shop that book to 17 different publishers as fiction and have it rejected before it got published as non-fiction? Because anyone can lie, exagerate, and tell hyped up "war stories" about addiction. It's funny how he's anti-12 step program but some of the basic principles behind these programs are honesty and humility, two things he seems to have a problem with. One might say Frey suffers from what doctor's call "dry drunk" syndrome, an addict or alcholic who abstains but does not have any recovery, basically still a lying, manipulitive, self centetered, self seeking, ego maniac except he's clean.
Third, if he's only admitting to what can be proven, what else is he lying about. Where there is smoke, there's fire.
Fourth, as I run in recovery circles, I've meet people a thousand times more inspirational than him, with or without his lies. The difference is that they have the humility and spirituality not to hype their pain up and try to make a buck off it. I've meet dudes dying of AIDS who stay clean from heroin knowing they're going to die, I knew a woman, an ex-prostitute, who had cancer and HIV and stayed clean AND got her masters degree before passing away. Frey's a fucking small fish with a big mouth in the world of inspirational recovering addicts.
If I seem a little to serious about this it's because to me this is serious. They were giving addicts this book in treatment, telling them to just "hold on", and shit like that. Giving people a book of lies! How many addicts died thinking "just hold on"? Or were deterred from treatment or 12 step programs because of his writing, only never to live long enough to hear it was all bullshit. Because people dying is about as real as it gets in my world, and using addicts have enough shit out there trying to kill their asses let alone bad information.
Comments
think of blockbuster movies....
think of chart topping cd's....
[overused cliche]it is what it is[/overused cliche]
should we start a [hack]dan brown[/hack] post while we're at it?
It's also been well-established that the brain is unreliable when it comes to memories. People unwittingly "recreate" memories or mis-remember things to paint themselves in a more flattering light.
That said, I think the publisher's willingness to refund the price of the book is an attempt to protect itself from further liability...Since they didn't include the standard disclaimer, couldn't they be sued for fraud?
Honestly, I think they fear Oprah. If she was not envolved they would never have offered a refund.
A "memoir" is hardly a clinical, wholly factual account of a life.
I think the guy is completely full of shit when he goes on Oprah or Larry King and talks about the importance of "honesty" and being true to yorself and your work, but it sounds like he is a hell of a writer regardless. Only in this modern age (and I think, specifically in America) does something as piffling as this constitute a scandal or controversey.
My 2 cents.
Hatt away.
H2>OPRAH IS AN ARMY/H2>
Yeah, that too. I guess 'hard investigative news' only sells when it's about something that is already just entertainment.
"ANGELINA's PREGNANT! YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!!!"
Riiiight. You never read memoirs, biographies, nor autobriographies, do you? Much of it is bullshit, or stretched, or whatever. Come on now, just cause this guy got put out there like that...? Investigate any memoir. Come on.
"Jesus, God, Honesty, Family, uh, Weapons of Mass Destruction... like, and stuff."
I think the point is that his claims to drug addiction are possibly bogus as well as most of the other stuff. There have been so many fishy fictional autobiographies and fact-based novels swimming around recently that I can scarcely distinguish between them. I don't blame him - if I was writing this kind of ghoulish car-crash lit then I'd embellish the fuck out of it. Sensationionalism sells.
Yes, I've read half a dozen of them at least.
Much of it is stretched, or some of it is stretched? Again, I'm not a fucking idiot, I know these things are not 100% accurate, and again, what makes this book so popular is how incredible the things he supposedly went through.
This isn't a case of "oh, I should have said I met her in 1985 not 1984", it's more like "I ran over a cop" which is complete and total bullshit. And those kind of over the top stories are littered throughout that book ad-nauseum.
Hazelden can't talk about it under patient confidentiality, all charachters who could corroborate ANYTHING are conveiniently dead or disappeared, every one of his crimes have been exposed as bullshit or blown ridiculously out of proportion, etc.
Dude probably lied about the whole thing.
Fuck this, I'm done. This is a stupid debate to be having.
And George Washington chopped down the cherry tree.
A lot of stuff is bullshit. Just enjoy it as a good story.
Graf, peep this out: Millions of people bought this book and read it under the pretense that it was at least as close to an actual account of the author's life as possible. That clearly isn't the case now. Readers have every right to be upset that they paid for and spent time reading something that isn't true. I especially feel for people who went/are going through similar things and instead of getting confirmation of hope/a way to overcome, they got some suckoff's fantasyland choose-you-own-adventure story! (In so many words)
Plenty of people change their lives over totally fictional trash that litters the chain bookstores and supermarkets of this great nation. Now everyone's panties are in a bunch because this dude stretched the truth a little bit?
this thread is kind of disgusting
Lord knows nobody should spend time reading something that isn't true
this is literature, not tv news people
What if I wrote a book about my amazing success story founding and running Good Records in NYC? Complete bullshit, but it might inspire someone...
I agree.
Granted. But, this is also a debate about fiction v. non-fiction.
I'm willing to bet that this book never makes the Oprah list if it was billed as fiction.
In that case, there would be no need to have this discussion.
I would totally disagree... I mean I don't keep up on what Oprah likes or doesn't but I would think that a powerful book with a positive message would make it regardless of its basis in fact.
The problem here is merely that the guy should have said "based on a true story"
Jonny
I think that the issue that this turns on (and I believe it to be legitimate) is that this was not presented as "literature" but as a factual account of this guys horrific life. The book doesn't even include a standard disclaimer in relation to "some names/events may be changed for whatever reason". The "power" of the book - as it is - is that they guy supposedly endured the gauntlet and came out the other side. As it turns out, the guantlet didn't really exist in any substantive way. He made up his numerous prison stays, his attack on a police officer, and it turns out attached himself to a tragic event that he had nothing to do with.
I too have been moved/inspired by works of fiction (Kerouac, Hesse, Carver et al).
If this had been presented as "roman a clef" there wouldn't really be anything to argue about. Nobody goes back and vetts Kerouac's novels, because although there are elements of reality in them, they are clearly fiction. Had Frey's book been presented that way, it would likely have had a similar effect on its readers, and he would have avoided this controversy.
HEY LARRY LOOK WE AGREE!!
the only thing this effects in my life is that we may have to move this book from nonfiction to fiction in the library
H3>Author Frey admits fictions, Oprah apologizes /H3>
By Michael Conlon
Author James Frey confessed to Oprah Winfrey on Thursday that he made up details about every character in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces" and the talk show host apologized to her viewers, saying she felt "duped."[/b]
"I have been really embarrassed by this," said Winfrey, whose praise for Frey's book in September helped make it the top-selling book on nonfiction lists in the United States last year.
"I really feel duped," she told Frey on her television show. She said he had betrayed millions of viewers.
At one point early in the interview Frey said he still viewed the work as a memoir, not a novel. By the show's end Winfrey made him admit he lied.
"This hasn't been a great day for me," he said. "I feel like I came here and I have been honest with you. I have, you know, essentially admitted to ..."
"Lying," Winfrey interrupted.[/b]
"To lying," he said. "It's not an easy thing to do in front of an audience full of people and a lot of others watching on TV. ... If I come out of this experience with anything it's being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure I don't repeat them."
Winfrey began by apologizing to viewers for a telephone call she made to CNN's "Larry King Live" show on January 11, while King was interviewing Frey about the controversy. In the call Winfrey said that even though the facts were being questioned, the book "still resonates with me" and called the controversy "much ado about nothing."
"I regret that phone call," she told her viewers on Thursday. "I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that. That is not what I believe."
Sitting with Frey in side-by-side easy chairs, Winfrey quizzed the author point-by-point about his book that described his drug-and-alcohol addiction and the people hurt by it
"All the way through the book I altered details about every one of the characters," Frey said, to disguise true identities..[/b]
He spent two hours in jail, not 87 days, and the account of his breaking up with a woman who later committed suicide happened in a much shorter period of time, with their separation occurring while he was taking care of personal business in North Carolina, not while he was in jail, he said.
She committed suicide by slashing her wrists, he said, not by hanging herself.
The controversy over Frey's work has raged for weeks at a level rarely seen in U.S. literary circles, and the debate has even called into question the veracity of other memoir-like works published over the years.
Nan Talese, editorial director from Random House's Doubleday division, which published the book, appeared after Frey and told Winfrey the book went through the usual review process and "I absolutely believed what I read."
"I think this whole experience is very sad. It's very sad for you, it's very sad for us," she said, but "people do not remember the same way. And I thought, as a publisher, this is James' memory of the hell he went through and I believed it."
Asked if The Smoking Gun Web site, which first questioned the book, had accurately characterized the discrepancies, Frey said "I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate," adding they did "a good job."
Frey said he had developed an image of himself for the book as "being tougher than I was, badder than I was" as a "coping mechanism."
Winfrey asked if that was to make a better book or to make him a better person.
"Probably both," he answered.
Frey's book had been chosen by Winfrey for her reading club -- an honor which often turns books into best sellers. The book sold more than 1.77 million copies last year after being chosen by Winfrey.
On January 17 Winfrey chose Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's "Night" as her latest selection, sending the book, first published in the United States in 1960, to the top of best-seller lists.
Random House is a unit of German media conglomerate Bertelsman AG.
I tried to give it a chance after reading about all this, but after a page or two I gave up and threw it in the trash. Harsh, I know, but what's the use if I can't discern fact from fiction?
My wife was like "do you still have that book? I wanted to read it."
oots.
I checked it out in the bookstore to see if he is at least a decent writer. I read a couple of pages.
He is not.
H2>OPRAH IS AN ARMY/H2>
Fuck that motherfuckin' book. There.
No, for real, there are a couple of key points regarding this book I feel are worth mentioning. I've had problems with the book since before it was outed as a fake, but now it's a whole new ball game and I get to wear a rainbow wig and wave a giant banner that says "I Told You So!".
First, misinformation about addiction kills addicts, straight up. Frey spreads his misinformation three fold in his book. From the Slate:
"For nonaddicts, Pieces reinforces the still dangerously prevalent notion that it's easy to spot a drug addict or an alcoholic???they're the ones bleeding from holes in their cheeks or getting beaten down by the police or doing hard time with killers and rapists. For those struggling with their own substance-abuse issues, Pieces sends the message that unless you've reached the depths Frey describes, you don't have anything to worry about???you're a Fraud. And if you do have a problem, you don't need to necessarily get treatment or look to others for support; all you need to do is "hold on." "
Second, anyone can write a good story, that's talent, but what makes it inspirational is when that shit's for real. Why did he shop that book to 17 different publishers as fiction and have it rejected before it got published as non-fiction? Because anyone can lie, exagerate, and tell hyped up "war stories" about addiction. It's funny how he's anti-12 step program but some of the basic principles behind these programs are honesty and humility, two things he seems to have a problem with. One might say Frey suffers from what doctor's call "dry drunk" syndrome, an addict or alcholic who abstains but does not have any recovery, basically still a lying, manipulitive, self centetered, self seeking, ego maniac except he's clean.
Third, if he's only admitting to what can be proven, what else is he lying about. Where there is smoke, there's fire.
Fourth, as I run in recovery circles, I've meet people a thousand times more inspirational than him, with or without his lies. The difference is that they have the humility and spirituality not to hype their pain up and try to make a buck off it. I've meet dudes dying of AIDS who stay clean from heroin knowing they're going to die, I knew a woman, an ex-prostitute, who had cancer and HIV and stayed clean AND got her masters degree before passing away. Frey's a fucking small fish with a big mouth in the world of inspirational recovering addicts.
If I seem a little to serious about this it's because to me this is serious. They were giving addicts this book in treatment, telling them to just "hold on", and shit like that. Giving people a book of lies! How many addicts died thinking "just hold on"? Or were deterred from treatment or 12 step programs because of his writing, only never to live long enough to hear it was all bullshit. Because people dying is about as real as it gets in my world, and using addicts have enough shit out there trying to kill their asses let alone bad information.
Deep beats and deep crates,
SonicReducer