James Frey to write ‘third book of the Bible’
James Frey: from drugs to Jesus. Photograph: Antonio Olmos
James Frey is moving on from his drugs and booze-soaked memoirs to write the third book of the Bible, in which his version of Jesus will perform gay marriages.
Talking to online magazine The Rumpus.net, Frey said he had just finished an outline for the book, and was about to start writing it. “It’s the third book of the Bible, called The Final Testament of the Holy Bible,” he told interviewer and fellow author Stephen Elliott. “My idea of what the Messiah would be like if he were walking the streets of New York today. What would he believe? What would he preach? How would he live? With who?”
Frey’s latest choice of subject matter sees him following in the footsteps of Jeffrey Archer, who last year penned The Gospel According to Judas, which told the story of Jesus through the eyes of Judas. Earlier this year The Crimson Petal and the White author Michel Faber published The Fire Gospel, in which a scholar discovers a fifth gospel in a bombed Iraqi musuem which reveals that Jesus’s last words were “please, somebody, please finish me”.
Frey said his version would see Jesus living with a prostitute. “It doesn’t matter how or who you love. I don’t believe the messiah would condemn gay men and women,” he said. Judas, meanwhile, would be the “same as he was two thousand years ago”, a “selfish man who thinks of himself before the good of humanity, who values money more than love”.
Frey shot to fame in 2005 for his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, which was chosen for Oprah Winfrey’s book club in the US and immediately went to the top of bestseller charts. A gritty read dealing with Frey’s time as an alcoholic drug addict and former criminal, Winfrey declared it to be “like nothing you’ve ever read before”. But it was then revealed that the book contained some fabrications, and in an unprecedented move, Frey and his US publisher Douleday agreed to refund readers who felt they had been defrauded.
Frey, who has been touring to promote his first novel, Bright Shiny Morning, said his books would continue to be “a mix of fact and fiction”. “I think it’s an interesting place to work, especially now. What someone calls my books is irrelevant to me. I consider them works of art and rules and categories and labels mean nothing.”
Elliott admitted to Frey that he was nervous about the reception of his new book, The Adderall Diaries, which is half memoir, half true-crime: “I know it’s a lot easier to attack someone writing non-fiction,” he said.
Frey encouraged him not to worry. ” If a book is cool, and entertaining, and moving, then get your middle finger ready and raise it often. Fuck’em all,” he said.