James Frey: ‘I always wanted to be the outlaw’
The controversial novelist talks about truth, fiction and his new book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible
James Frey: ‘You talk about facts. I talk about truth.’ Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
James Frey sprawls on his back along the couch, knees bent with one tucked over the other, his laptop propped between midriff and thighs. He hits a key, and the computer bursts into noisy punk music – the Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant – so loud that I can hardly hear him when he nods towards the TV and adds, “Oh, and that would normally be on as well.” Typing with two fingers, he mouths each sentence aloud before committing it to the page, looking for all the world like a semi-literate teen with attention deficit issues, posting idle nonsense on Facebook. “So this,” he says, “is how I write a book.”