A billion little pieces. No! A trillion!
I won't deny it: The Smoking Gun's James Frey exposé may have found a credulous audience here at Girls in Skirts on Ladders HQ. I challenge anyone to hear:
"Do you have that book A Million Tiny Pieces?"
"Do you have that book A Thousand Little Pieces?"
"Do you have that book A Million Shattered Pieces?"
"Do you have that book In a Million Pieces?"
"Do you have the Oprah book? The blue one."
about fifty times a day and not come out of it wanting to throttle James Frey. I endeavor every day of my life not to judge writers or musicians or artists based on the shortcomings of their audiences, so I wouldn't really despise A Million Little Pieces unless I'd actually tried to read it, with the emphasis on the word "tried." I think what it really comes down to is that Frey's incessant capitalization of common nouns, like "Guys" and "Addict" and "Rehab" is one of the most irksome writerly tics I've ever encountered1. Capitalizing common nouns can be used, sparingly, to good effect, but when the effect is to make your book look like it might have been written by an astonishingly debauched 18th century ne'er-do-well, it's time to find a different gimmick.
Of course, if you believe The Smoking Gun, Frey's whole thing is a gimmick. There's really no substitute for reading the entire lengthy and damning article, but suffice it to say that after originally setting out to simply find Frey's mug shot for their collection, TSG ended up with law enforcement officials willing to go on record as stating that key plot points2 in A Million Little Pieces are either exagerrated or made up completely. Crucially, the crack-fueled melee that, in the book, results after Frey hits a police officer with his car and brings him very close to doing a good stretch in prison, appears never to have happened. There's a priceless moment in the article where the officer who finds the documentation of what actually happened is surprised to find that he himself was the arresting officer. You would think that a cop in a sleepy Ohio town would remember arresting a drug-crazed lunatic for a long list of charges, including the dreaded Felony Mayhem3.
Even that, however, is small potatoes compared to Frey's allegedly inserting himself into the story of Melissa Sanders, a classmate who was killed when a train hit the car in which she was riding. Frey invents a minor but crucial part for himself in the tragedy that allows him to childishly spit venom at the community that supposedly blamed him, the self-styled outcast, for Sanders's death while sympathizing with the jock who drove the car. I imagine that, in the upcoming movie, the scenes of young Jimmy Frey being vilified will be intercut with scenes of him working out his aggression in ever more outlandish ways as Slipknot plays in the background.
I can't help but wonder if James Frey is going to end up being the Milli Vanilli of rehab memoirists. When I go into work tomorrow, will I have to deal with people wanting their money back? Will we institute a trade system? Will anyone even care? I feel like, as a society, we've gotten to the point where we not only don't get angry when the supposedly genuine is revealed to be fabricated, we actually sort of expect it. We're comfortable with it. Even Marianne Sanders, the mother of the girl whose death Frey appears to have cynically exploited to gain sympathy from his audience, looks to have shrugged it off: "When I read that I figured he was taking license...he's a writer, you know, they don't tell everything that's factual and true. I just figured he embroidered a few things...I mean I'm sure not every single thing he said in there is gonna be true, do you think?"
Frey has responded to the accusations predictably: posturing, followed by the more polite eqivalent of the probably fictional punches he takes such obvious delight in recounting in the pages of A Million Little Pieces, the threat of legal action. Even I was prepared to give Frey the benefit of the doubt when I saw that TSG was on the attack. Much like Marianne Sanders, I assumed Frey had probably just taken liberties with some facts, messed with timelines, conflated characters, etc, the kind of things all memoirists do. The Smoking Gun's report makes a compelling case that he went much, much further than that, and now that major outlets like The New York Times4 are picking up on the story, I'll be very interested to see whether Frey can maneuver, G. W. Bush-like, through the accusations without ever having to answer them, or if the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. I don't make a habit of wishing ill on other human beings, but I won't deny that there is a tiny part of me that would delight in Frey's ruination. Or should that be "Ruination"?
1 It could also be the narcissistic macho posturing, the evident pride in his alleged crack-fueled misbehaviors, the insufferable self-pity, and the coarse, lazy writing that did it.
2 An appropriate term to use, I think.
3 A charge which, it turns out, doesn't exist.
4 Also in Tuesday's Times: "A Night to See the Stars Actually Wearing Clothes," an article on the AVN adult video awards that features the following utterly marvelous paragraph: "[The award for best feature] went to 'Pirates,' a relatively high-budget story of a group of ragtag sailors who go searching for a crew of evil pirates who have a plan for world domination. Also, many of the characters in the movie have sex with one another."
"Do you have that book A Million Tiny Pieces?"
"Do you have that book A Thousand Little Pieces?"
"Do you have that book A Million Shattered Pieces?"
"Do you have that book In a Million Pieces?"
"Do you have the Oprah book? The blue one."
about fifty times a day and not come out of it wanting to throttle James Frey. I endeavor every day of my life not to judge writers or musicians or artists based on the shortcomings of their audiences, so I wouldn't really despise A Million Little Pieces unless I'd actually tried to read it, with the emphasis on the word "tried." I think what it really comes down to is that Frey's incessant capitalization of common nouns, like "Guys" and "Addict" and "Rehab" is one of the most irksome writerly tics I've ever encountered1. Capitalizing common nouns can be used, sparingly, to good effect, but when the effect is to make your book look like it might have been written by an astonishingly debauched 18th century ne'er-do-well, it's time to find a different gimmick.
Of course, if you believe The Smoking Gun, Frey's whole thing is a gimmick. There's really no substitute for reading the entire lengthy and damning article, but suffice it to say that after originally setting out to simply find Frey's mug shot for their collection, TSG ended up with law enforcement officials willing to go on record as stating that key plot points2 in A Million Little Pieces are either exagerrated or made up completely. Crucially, the crack-fueled melee that, in the book, results after Frey hits a police officer with his car and brings him very close to doing a good stretch in prison, appears never to have happened. There's a priceless moment in the article where the officer who finds the documentation of what actually happened is surprised to find that he himself was the arresting officer. You would think that a cop in a sleepy Ohio town would remember arresting a drug-crazed lunatic for a long list of charges, including the dreaded Felony Mayhem3.
Even that, however, is small potatoes compared to Frey's allegedly inserting himself into the story of Melissa Sanders, a classmate who was killed when a train hit the car in which she was riding. Frey invents a minor but crucial part for himself in the tragedy that allows him to childishly spit venom at the community that supposedly blamed him, the self-styled outcast, for Sanders's death while sympathizing with the jock who drove the car. I imagine that, in the upcoming movie, the scenes of young Jimmy Frey being vilified will be intercut with scenes of him working out his aggression in ever more outlandish ways as Slipknot plays in the background.
I can't help but wonder if James Frey is going to end up being the Milli Vanilli of rehab memoirists. When I go into work tomorrow, will I have to deal with people wanting their money back? Will we institute a trade system? Will anyone even care? I feel like, as a society, we've gotten to the point where we not only don't get angry when the supposedly genuine is revealed to be fabricated, we actually sort of expect it. We're comfortable with it. Even Marianne Sanders, the mother of the girl whose death Frey appears to have cynically exploited to gain sympathy from his audience, looks to have shrugged it off: "When I read that I figured he was taking license...he's a writer, you know, they don't tell everything that's factual and true. I just figured he embroidered a few things...I mean I'm sure not every single thing he said in there is gonna be true, do you think?"
Frey has responded to the accusations predictably: posturing, followed by the more polite eqivalent of the probably fictional punches he takes such obvious delight in recounting in the pages of A Million Little Pieces, the threat of legal action. Even I was prepared to give Frey the benefit of the doubt when I saw that TSG was on the attack. Much like Marianne Sanders, I assumed Frey had probably just taken liberties with some facts, messed with timelines, conflated characters, etc, the kind of things all memoirists do. The Smoking Gun's report makes a compelling case that he went much, much further than that, and now that major outlets like The New York Times4 are picking up on the story, I'll be very interested to see whether Frey can maneuver, G. W. Bush-like, through the accusations without ever having to answer them, or if the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. I don't make a habit of wishing ill on other human beings, but I won't deny that there is a tiny part of me that would delight in Frey's ruination. Or should that be "Ruination"?
1 It could also be the narcissistic macho posturing, the evident pride in his alleged crack-fueled misbehaviors, the insufferable self-pity, and the coarse, lazy writing that did it.
2 An appropriate term to use, I think.
3 A charge which, it turns out, doesn't exist.
4 Also in Tuesday's Times: "A Night to See the Stars Actually Wearing Clothes," an article on the AVN adult video awards that features the following utterly marvelous paragraph: "[The award for best feature] went to 'Pirates,' a relatively high-budget story of a group of ragtag sailors who go searching for a crew of evil pirates who have a plan for world domination. Also, many of the characters in the movie have sex with one another."
posted by Dktr. Blasphemy at 12:50 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks for you visit on my blog... It's a good surprise to read you and your humor... I like it !!!
Pieces Recall
I imagine this will make for even more annoying customer comments.
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