Poison pens: The art of literary revenge
Jilly Cooper has named a goat in her latest novel after a critic who wrote a biting review. She got away lightly…
By Andy McSmith
James Frey vs Oprah
There is no better way to boost sales in the US book market than being featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but for James Frey, author of a memoir called A Million Little Pieces, about his recovery from drug addiction, the experience turned nasty after it was revealed that a good part of his book was made up. He was called back on to the show when a sometimes tearful Winfrey demanded to know why “he felt the need to lie”.
Three years later, in 2009, a paperback edition of Frey’s novel Bright Shiny Morning, appeared, with a new section entitled “Chat Show Host” that was not in the original hardback. It described how the protagonist was hauled on to a chat show to be called a liar, and how he later recorded a telephone conversation with the chat show host in which she said that she had written a book that had never been published. When asked if he really had a recording of a phone conversation with Winfrey, Frey replied: “The book is fiction. Interpret it however you want.”