WaPo: “What to make of this strange, ambitious, near-brilliant piece of ventriloquism from controversial memoirist James Frey? ‘The Final Testament of the Holy Bible’…”
Michael Lindgren reviews James Frey’s ‘The Final Testament of the Holy Bible’
By Michael Lindgren
What to make of this strange, ambitious, near-brilliant piece of ventriloquism from controversial memoirist James Frey? “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” presents the reader with a knotty exercise in genre disorientation.
The book is, among other things, a vivid re-imagining of the life of Jesus Christ, a pricey quasi-objet d’art from super-gallerist Gagosian, a calculated act of provocation, a gesture of almost stupefying egotism, and a sincere and moving examination of the nature of spirituality. The multiple ironies at hand are potentially disabling.
Carefully designed and formatted to resemble a traditional Bible — right down to the words of Jesus highlighted in red — “The Final Testament” tells the story of Ben Zion Avrohom, an alcoholic drifter in modern-day New York who undergoes a transformation after he miraculously survives a horrific accident.
The men and women who offer testimonies about their experience with Ben include doctors, cops, lawyers, priests, rabbis, drug addicts and homeless men, and they are almost all endowed with remarkable authenticity, their voices convincingly and realistically inhabited.
These variegated narratives, sketched with incisive psychological acuity, give “The Final Testament” its own weird integrity. Through these voices, Frey has made an honest attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus to their radical conclusions; in doing so, he has created a chronicle that, despite its contradictions, moves to its own inner spirit.
Toni Morrison, James Frey Among Oprah’s Final Guests
Toni Morrison, James Frey Among Oprah’s Final Guests
Toni Morrison was one of the first authors whose works were selected for Oprah’s Book Club, with the selection of Song of Solomon in 1996. Later selections included Paradise (1998), The Bluest Eye (2000), and Sula (2002).
A Million Little Pieces, James Frey’s memoir of addiction, was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 2005. In January 2006, the Smoking Gun reported that inconsistencies and discrepancies existed in the book. Subsequently, James Frey acknowledged that he had employed a degree of literary license in the writing of the book, including altering and embellishing certain details. Following this revelation, Frey discussed the controversy with Oprah Winfrey live on her show.
Mojo- and Honey-Glazed Chicken With Roasted Sweet-Potato Hash and Black-Bean Jus
Chef Randy Zweiban of Province
For brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 gallons water
For chicken:
2 whole roasting chickens (can substitute 4 large chicken breasts)
1 cup mojo sauce (Recipe)
4 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons mojo sauce
Canola oil
Add salt, sugar and water to a large pot. Bring to boil, remove from heat and allow to cool.
Place chicken in a deep baking pan and cover with brine. Cover pan and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, remove chicken from the brine, dry and place in deep baking pan. Pour 1 cup of the mojo sauce (see recipe) over the chicken, coating it, and marinate for about 3 hours.
CNN: How Oprah has changed the way we live
How Oprah has changed the way we live
By Megan Clifford, CNN
(CNN) — From “aha!” moments to “teachable” moments, in 25 years “The Oprah Winfrey Show” has not just become a part of our popular vernacular, it’s shaped our culture. Whether you’ve tuned in each weekday afternoon or preferred to tune her out, “Lady O” has left her mark.
Here’s our list of the top five ways “Oprah” has changed the way we live.
Reading
Oprah got people walking, and reading. During the 14 years of Oprah’s Book Club, fans bought millions of copies of Oprah’s 65 selected reading suggestions. A lit pick by Oprah guaranteed additional printings and big paychecks for publishers and authors.
Controversy colored her 2005 choice of James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” when the author was forced to admit he had made up large sections of the story of drug addiction and recovery that he touted as nonfiction.
Nonetheless, it made for great discussions at Oprah-inspired book clubs across the country.
Race relations
Oprah has always credited the sacrifice and service of the men and women involved in the civil rights movement for paving a path for a poor African- American woman from the South to transform into a beloved billionaire businesswoman. In turn, Oprah’s success has inspired millions more.
Porn With A Bespoke Twist
A Porn Star Book Is Selling with a Bespoke Twist
A new limited-edition book by an adult film star aims to sell copies by offering buyers something they won’t find elsewhere.
Girlvert: A Porno Memoir is priced at a whopping $200 and limited to a mere 50.
So, what’s the twist?
Each book jacket contains one of the starlet’s pubic hairs.
[P]orn star Oriana Small, whose stage name is Ashley Blue, and her publisher are exploring what the literary-minded and sexually curious will pay for when it comes to art books.
Girlvert is Small’s autobiography of her decade-long career in the porn trade. Small, as Blue, is a widely-known performer. She is famous for her extreme sexual performances and for starring in an adult video series entitled “Girlvert.” The book is her story of what happened on stage and off, from her personal struggles to performing for the cameras to finding love.
Blue joins a new literary niche: porn star authors. Porn star-turned-”Entourage” guest star Sasha Grey, who scored the lead role in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Girlfriend Experience,” recently released Neu Sex, a book of erotic photos. Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, co-written with Neil Strauss, spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and continues to sell.
And Girlvert has scored a nod from another controversial author, James Frey. “Oriana Small has pushed herself to the outermost extremes of what the body and mind are capable of — all before turning thirty years old — and now she’s made it an authentic read for the rest of us to marvel at, elevating the depravity and denial inherent in the pornographic arts to a singular literary experience,” Frey’s blurb for the book reads.
The Opening Of THE RATTLING WALL
The opening celebration for ‘The Rattling Wall’
Maybe all readings should let the bar open before getting underway.
Whether it was helped by the wine and beer or not, Wednesday night’s kickoff of the new literary journal “The Rattling Wall” was a festive celebration. Held at the Hammer Museum, the room was filled to its 250-person capacity, with stylish young literati, well-heeled PEN stalwarts, and the contributors, who fell, demographically, somewhere between the two.
“The Rattling Wall” is a print literary journal published biannually, supported by PEN Center USA West, and edited by PEN’s program director Michelle Meyering. The first issue, which includes a whopping 36 contributors, features fiction by James Frey, Blake Butler and Tod Goldberg; poetry by Tony Hoagland and Matthew Zapruder; and travel essays by Samantha Dunn and Don Winslow.
Although most of Wednesday night’s readers hail from the West Coast, Meyering hinted at the magazine’s ambitions when she told the audience that she looked forward to “building a national community of readers and writers around the journal.”
Hova Takes MOMA
Rappers Turn Heads at MoMA
By ERICA ORDEN
![[GARDEN3]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-AY269_GARDEN_G_20110511174610.jpg)
Patrick McMullan
Jay-Z (left) appeared as a guest of Kanye West during MoMa’s Party in the Garden.
It’s not easy to outshine Kanye West, but if anyone can do it, it’s Jay-Z.
The Brooklyn-raised rapper appeared as a special guest Tuesday night during Mr. West’s performance at the Museum of Modern Art’s annual Party in the Garden, in front of an already-frenzied crowd that erupted when he joined Mr. West onstage.
But the earlier crowd, nibbling on mini lobster rolls and mini prosciutto BLT sandwiches, did find time for other topics.
Author James Frey said he’s continuing to develop his art collection. “I just bought a couple pictures by my boy Richard Phillips,” said Mr. Frey, pointing to the artist, standing nearby.
Mr. Frey was less inclined to discuss his impending appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show next week— “I really can’t talk about it,” he said. “I signed papers.”—but was eager to mention the HBO drama he’s writing about the pornography industry.
“I interviewed the CEOs of the three biggest companies in the world,” he said. “If we get to shoot everything we’ve come up with,” he said, “it’s going to be amazing.”
ANGRY BIRDS by POMPLAMOOSE
Duo Mogul Party Crash @ MOMA
Kanye West and Jay-Z Crash MoMA’s Garden Party
by
One of the bigger sing-alongs of Kanye West’s performance at the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday night came about 20 minutes into his hour-plus set. Dressed in light blue jeans, a gray hoodie and black skytops, West bent into the mic to sing the first four notes of his 2007 single, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.”
Jay-Z and Kanye West
Photo By Nicholas Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com
“Laaaaa. Laa. La-la,” several hundred party goers chanted right along, “Wait ‘til I get my money right!”
Among those who turned out for the party, sponsored this year by Cartier, were Henry Kravis and Marie-Josée Kravis, Larry Gagosian, Michael Douglas, Jerry Speyer and David Rockefeller. James Frey, standing near one of the garden’s pools, explained that a non-disclosure agreement would keep him from discussing his upcoming interview with Oprah. He talked art instead.
“At MoMA, my favorite [work] to see is the Pollocks,” the author said. “The ferocity of it and the recklessness of it, and the abandon of it and the beauty of it. I wish I could do with words what he did with paint.”
Would he be sticking around for Kanye?
“F–k yeah I am,” Frey said.
A few of Frey’s fellow attendees, including Leelee Sobieski and Richard Phillips, echoed the endorsement of West. As cocktail hour ended, and the garden began to clear, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was chatting among a circle of guests that included Jamie Dimon. On his way into dinner, the mayor talked up the museum.
“This is one of the great jewels in the cultural crown of New York,” he said, surveying his surroundings.
So would he be sticking around for Mr. West?
The mayor paused.
Swiss Cannibal
Police: Would-be cannibal arrested after gunbattle
May. 11, 2011 04:25 PM Associated Press
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — A would-be cannibal was arrested and in critical condition after being wounded in a gunbattle with officers during an undercover operation, officials said Wednesday. A policeman was also wounded.
The 43-year-old suspect used the Internet to search for a person who wanted to commit suicide and would agree to let him eat the body, police said. A Swiss citizen initially agreed but later changed his mind and informed authorities.
An undercover officer who pretended he was the would-be victim was used during Tuesday’s operation, police said. He arrived at the eastern town of Kysak to meet the suspect, who opened fire seven times, striking one officer who remains hospitalized in serious condition.
AP: Oprah Winfrey plans 2-episode interview with James Frey
Winfrey plans 2-episode interview with James Frey
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: 1:26 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Oprah Winfrey’s interview with author James Frey will stretch over two episodes during the final full week of her talk show.
The shows will air May 16 and 17, more than five years after Winfrey accused Frey on live television of lying in one of his books. During a short promotional clip on Tuesday’s episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” an announcer deemed it “the biggest controversy in Oprah show history.”
Winfrey chose Frey’s substance abuse story “A Million Little Pieces,” for her book club in September 2005, making it a million-seller.
Oprah Winfrey’s interview with author James Frey will stretch over two episodes during the final full week of her talk show.“The biggest-ever retrospective of street art and graffiti.”
THE NEW MASTERS OF GRAFFITI
by Caroline Ryder
As crowds flock to LA for the biggest-ever retrospective of street art and graffiti, we showcase the artists most likely to follow in the footsteps of Banksy and Shepard Fairey.
The rise of the leading pop-art movement of our time has been somewhat improbable. From the clanging, dirty New York subways that were its first canvases to white-walled galleries in London, New York, or Tokyo, graffiti has entranced teenagers and art collectors alike. Now the movement’s birthplace is finally recognizing its most wide-reaching visual-art phenomenon with the first major museum exhibition to pay homage to the artists (or vandals, depending on your point of view) whose canvases are the urban streetscape.
“Art In The Streets”, which opened last month at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, honors graffiti – and its hip young sibling, street art – with an exhibition spanning 30,000 square feet and featuring 50 artists, a number and size unprecedented in the movement’s history.
Rodrigo Corral Lecture @ AIGA South Carolina – Thursday, May 12
Designer Rodrigo Corral to give lecture hosted by AIGA South Carolina
By blueion, but enhanced by others
Join the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) for what is sure to be an inspiring time with talented designer Rodrigo Corral.
AIGASC
A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, Rodrigo has designed some memorable and fascinating book covers, including James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces; all the covers for author Chuck Palanuick (including his latest publication Tell All) and most recently, hip-hop artist Jay Z’s book Decoded.
Event Details
Thursday, May 12
5:30 p.m. Social | 6:30 p.m. Lecture
Blue Ion
301 B King Street
Charleston, SC
Discussion of I AM NUMBER FOUR @ Hampton Library, May 12
from the Anderson Independent Mail
Book discussion at Hampton library May 12
PICKENS COUNTY — The teen book discussion group will be reading “I am Number Four” by Pittacus Lore at 3:30 p.m. May 12 at Hampton Memorial Library, Easley. If you like extraterrestrial lore with action, suspense, and a bit of romance, then this book is for you.
The program is free and open to all teens. Refreshments will be provided.
For more information, call the library at (864) 850-7077 or email reference@pickens.lib.sc.us.
Oh Bondage Rest in Peace! – Poly Styrene Gone
Poly Styrene, Lost & Found
Like many of her peers, she discovered the sound of being a grown woman
Janette Beckman
It was meant to be a delicious comeback for the transgressive girl whose defiant 1977 single, “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” fired up Afro-Punk, riot grrrl, and every punk worth their peroxide. Instead, the return of Poly Styrene became one of pop’s most poignant ironies. Generation Indigo — a bubbly, cuddly, insightful record, her first in seven years—was released on the day her death was announced last week.
The loss of 53-year-old Poly Styrene six months after the death of 48-year-old Ari-Up, the dreadlocked singer-songwriter of the Slits, is a reminder: how few were those brave women who shattered all pre-existing models during U.K. punk’s first wave. This ragtag crew was the first self-determined generation of women musicians, and their influence is incalculable; today, their giddy progeny have stormed the malls with their camouflage, neon fishnets, and combat boots worn with gowns. And while their sounds may resonate differently, today’s alpha women—Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Pink — still ride the whirlwind of independent female energy that shook mid-1970s London.
Full Fathom Glu
Cross Media: Glu Mobile Announces Partnership with Author James Frey
Social Mobile games publisher Glu Mobile has announced a partnership with Full Fathom Five, the publishing company of best-selling author James Frey, for a transmedia collaboration. “We are thrilled to announce this groundbreaking partnership with James and Full Fathom Five,” said Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu. “Glu and James Frey have a shared vision for the future of mobile and transmedia digital entertainment…. Properties will begin as novels and games on smartphones and tablets, with potential expansions for the most successful creations into television and film.”
The first of its kind, Glu and Full Fathom Five will create transmedia content that fans can enjoy as both Social Mobile games and as novels. Full Fathom Five has already experienced success in transmedia collaboration with “I Am Number Four”, a #1 New York Times bestseller for 7 weeks, which was produced into a film by Dreamworks and Disney released earlier this year and grossed $128 million worldwide. Mr. Frey has written three other #1 bestsellers and has 10 million books in print. His work is published in 39 languages. “I’m thrilled to be working with Glu, an incredible company that makes incredible games. Partnerships like this one are going to be a big part of the future of storytelling and gaming,” said Frey.
The Rattling Wall
The Rattling Wall: New LA-based Literary Journal
May 3, 2011 at 11:34 am in Books, LA
I’m not one of those Angelinos who will claim that our literary culture rivals that of New York (sorry people, it just doesn’t–we can still love LA and concede secondary status on pizza and publishers). Nonetheless, we do have a pretty vibrant community of writers and readers. I’ve written about Chaparral and What Books Press here before, and I’m always happy to see news of a new journal or press.
On that note, The Rattling Wall is set to launch this month, and the inaugural issue looks delightful with offerings from Albert Reyes, Tony Hoagland, James Frey, and Neal Pollack, among others. They’re having a release party at the Hammer a week from tomorrow.
THE FINAL TESTAMENT OF THE HOLY BIBLE @ EXHIBITION a
Six Planets In The Sky
Six Planets Now Aligned in the Dawn Sky
If you get up any morning for the next few weeks, you’ll be treated to the sight of all the planets except Saturn arrayed along the ecliptic, the path of the sun through the sky.
For the last two months, almost all the planets have been hiding behind the sun, but this week they all emerge and are arrayed in a grand line above the rising sun. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are visible, and you can add Uranus and Neptune to your count if you have binoculars or a small telescope.
This sky map of the six planets shows how they should appear at dawn to observers with clear weather and an unobstructed view.
Astrologers have always been fascinated by planetary alignments, and the doomsayers of 2012 have been prophesying a mystical alignment on Dec. 21, 2012.
Greatest Children’s Book Ever
Jesus Christ To Be Shopped For Film
‘The Final Testament of the Holy Bible’: James Frey’s Book About Jesus Christ To Be Shopped For Film
James Frey creates plenty of controversy on paper. A big screen version of his latest book could amplify his polarizing profile a million times over.The “Million Little Pieces” author, who admitted parts of his supposed memoir were fiction and received a public scolding from one-time supporter Oprah, recently released “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible,” an imagining of the second coming of Jesus Christ as a bisexual, former alcoholic named Ben who lives in the Bronx and impregnates a prostitute.
According to Deadline, he’s open to movie offers for the book, and the agency WME will begin the process of shopping it to different financiers and studios.
James Frey President Obama Sits Down With Oprah
President Obama Sits Down with “Oprah”
By Eric Alt
OWN
President Barack Obama jokes with Oprah Winfrey just hours after releasing a long-form version of his Hawaiian birth certificate.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama taped their May 2nd appearance on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” just hours after the President attempted to silence the growing furor over his birth certificate with a national press conference.
Oprah booked the First Couple as part of her march towards the May 25th finale of her long-running daytime talk show. She also recently confirmed that author James Frey, who famously had the veracity of his supposed memoir “A Million Little Pieces” questioned by Oprah a few years back, would be returning to the show during the final weeks.
Naturally, the subject of the President’s recent birth certificate debacle came up during the taping.
EXHIBITION a Collector’s Q & A
JAMES FREY
James Frey during a studio visit with Wes Lang
James Frey is a best selling author whose previous novels include A Million Little Pieces, My Friend Leonard and Bright Shiny Morning. Signed copies of his newest book, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible can be purchased on Exhibition A.
Who did the cover image for The Final Testament of the Holy Bibleand how did you arrive at that visual?
Gregory Crewdson shot the cover. We talked about what it should be, and I wanted a scalpel. If you read the book it becomes evident why. We looked at all sorts of scalpels and trays, and shot it in a studio in Chelsea. I was really honored to have him do it. He’s a great artist and one I admire greatly.
If Jesus came back around, as your book suggests, who would be best suited to paint his portrait.
Richard Phillips or John Currin. Maybe Jenny Saville. Maybe Nan Goldin.
IndieReader.com: The Next Coming of James Frey
The Next Coming of James Frey
Whether or not you’re a fan (and we freely admit that we are!) the fact that bestselling, bad-boy author James Frey has self published his next book is very big news.
The novel, out today, is called “The Final Testament of The Holy Bible”. Published in conjunction with the prestigious Gagosian Art Gallery (whose gorgeous, limited edition art books are also available via IndieReader), Frey’s book is commercially available in a limited run of 10,000 slip-cased leatherette copies, featuring cover art by photographer Gregory Crewdson. The rest will be sold exclusively online, to be downloaded on to digital readers. These will be the ONLY physical copies produced and available in the US.
AHE: Tell us Mr. Frey, why did you decide to self-publish?
JF: I didn’t want a huge number of copies of this book produced. I also wanted to control all of the editorial, publication and marketing decisions. Self-publishing is the only way to do this. And I’m excited about all of the changes in printing and technology that have made self-publishing easier. I wanted to try it, and see how it felt and see how it worked.
AHE: Did your deciding to self-publish have anything to do with any dissatisfaction with traditional publishing?
JF: Not really. I just love the idea of being free from the system. There are great things about traditional publishing, but I wanted to try to do this book on my own, to try to work within the new digital world. I think it’s a really exciting development for writers. The changes are going to provide us with a ton of new opportunities.
AHE: Can you tell us more about what the book is about?
JF: My idea of what it might be like if the Messiah was alive and living in New York City.
AHE: How long have you been working on it?
JF: I’ve been thinking about it for about fifteen years. It took two years to write.
Yeah Right. The Cosmonauts might not have boffed, but sex in space was certainly had!
Secret Space Sex Experiment Rumors Denied By Russian Expert
Updated: Friday, 22 Apr 2011, 9:39 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 22 Apr 2011, 8:50 AM EDT
By AFP
MOSCOW – Russian cosmonauts never had sex in space during the 50 years of human exploration of the cosmos, and rumors about secret sexual experiments were myths, the Interfax news agency reported Friday.
“There is no official or unofficial evidence that there were instances of sexual intercourse or the carrying out of sexual experiments in space,” Valery Bogomolov, the deputy director of the Moscow-based Institute of Biomedical Problems, told Interfax. “At least, in the history of Russian or Soviet space exploration, this most certainly was not the case.”
Rumors have persisted for years of secret Russian and American programs to test the effects of weightlessness on sex, but these were always strongly denied by both sides.
“Audiences who flocked to Mel Gibson’s film would consider Frey’s vision to be blasphemous”
Hollywood & Religion: More Controversy To Come If New Films Anger The Faithful
By MIKE FLEMING
— Hollywood agency WME will soon shop the movie rights to The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, a James Frey book published this weekend that imagines what the Second Coming of Christ would be like in contemporary America and depicts Jesus Christ as bisexual and promiscuous. Frey wrote the controversial A Million Little Pieces, a memoir that turned out to be semi-fictional. Though his new book is getting strong reviews, there is no getting around the fact that audiences who flocked to Mel Gibson’s film would consider Frey’s vision to be blasphemous. The book launched with a lavishly illustrated limited edition print run of 10,000 books — selling for $50 each –published by Gagosian Gallery. It will then be published published widely through e-book for the Kindle, Nook, iPad, Kobo and Sony ereader. Frey tells me he’s “open” to his book being shopped for films. When I asked who would be the movie audience for it, Frey says, “When I write, I don’t think that way. I wrote a book about what I think it might be like if the long awaited Messiah were alive today, who that person would be, what he would believe in, how he would live, how society would recognize him and deal with him,” Frey told me. “I spent 15 years thinking about it, and about how to do it, and what story to tell. I believe that the Messiah would not eschew the use of alcohol, nor restrict his ability and willingness to love based on what they do for a living or their gender.”
‘He’s one of the most terrifying rhetoricians the world has seen’
Amis on Hitchens: ‘He’s one of the most terrifying rhetoricians the world has seen’
Martin Amis hails the peerless intelligence and rhetorical ingenuity of his exceptional friend, Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens, left, on holiday with Martin Amis in Cape Cod, 1985.
Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle,” confessed Vladimir Nabokov in 1962. He took up the point more personally in his foreword to Strong Opinions (1973): “I have never delivered to my audience one scrap of information not prepared in typescript beforehand … My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French.
“At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts … nobody should ask me to submit to an interview … It has been tried at least twice in the old days, and once a recording machine was present, and when the tape was rerun and I had finished laughing, I knew that never in my life would I repeat that sort of performance.”
We sympathise. And most literary types, probably, would hope for inclusion somewhere or other on Nabokov’s sliding scale: “I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.”
Mr Hitchens isn’t like that.
NZH: Into the literary “Frey”
Into the literary Frey
By David Larsen
I still believe he’s a very talented writer and suspect we haven’t heard the last of James Frey.”
True words, as it turned out. “True words” being the kind Frey once claimed to write, which is why Kassie Evashevski, Frey’s literary agent, who made this comment in 2006, did so while announcing her decision to drop him as a client.
It had emerged that Frey’s bestselling memoir of drug addiction and recovery, A Million Little Pieces, was at least somewhat fictional. Oprah Winfrey had invited him and his publisher on to her show, then demanded they apologise for lying about the book’s veracity. The publisher subsequently offered a refund to anyone who had bought the book under the impression it was a true story.
So Frey went off into the wilderness and pondered on his transgressions and the terrible damage he had done to his reputation. He emerged years later, a quieter, gentler writer, and from that time forth wrote only quiet, gentle short stories, which attracted a small but discerning readership. He insisted his story collections be clearly labelled “fiction”.
Terry Richardson’s Thumb Meets James Frey’s Finger @ Opening of The Final Testament of The Holy Bible
TERRY RICHARDSON CONGRATULATING JAMES FREY ON THE RELEASE OF “THE FINAL TESTAMENT OF THE HOLY BIBLE”
New Book Says The Bible Was Forged
Book Assailing Bible as ‘Forged’ Promotes Fakery
By Jerry Newcombe
A new book by a major New Testament scholar is sure to make mincemeat of many people’s faith. Needlessly. The scholar is the iconoclastic Bart Ehrman, who teaches religion at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Ehrman, whose book is titled “Forged: Why the Bible’s Authors Are 
Not Who We Think They Are,” said on a radio broadcast that about 75 percent of the New Testament documents are supposedly forged. They’re frauds.
Sam Lamerson, a conservative New Testament scholar who teaches at Knox Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., heard Ehrman on a radio broadcast say words to this effect: “I want to be the scholar that uses the F-word about the Bible. I want people to know that these books were forged.” (By way of full disclosure, I’ll note that I earned a theology degree at Knox.)
“Forged” is a strong word. Several of the New Testament books claim no authorship at all. Church tradition has attributed them to various writers, but the biblical text itself does not claim authorship for these particular books. For instance, none of the four Gospels (of which tradition names the writers as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) actually has the names of the authors at the beginning of their documents.
But if a document is anonymous, how could it be a forgery?