La Ultima Cena Non
Last Supper was not Jesus’ last supper, researcher says
A British academic believes Jesus used a largely abandoned 3,000-year-old calendar that had Passover beginning Wednesday evening, and that the meal was indeed a Seder. So his actual last supper would probably have been jail fare.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” as depicted in a 1947 Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach. (Los Angeles Times)
By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times
The Last Supper was probably the next-to-last supper of Jesus’ life, a British researcher has concluded after using ancient calendars and astrological data to rethink the chronology of what Christians know as Holy Week.
Colin Humphreys, a scientist who previously explored the Exodus of the Old Testament, believes his studies show that Holy Thursday — the day that Jesus gathered his disciples for the famous supper, according to tradition — was actually a Wednesday.
Humphreys’ book, “The Mystery of the Last Supper” (Cambridge University Press), was published Thursday, a day that many Christians observed as one of the holiest of the year. That’s a mistake, according to the researcher, a professor of materials science at Cambridge University who has made a sideline of biblical research.
“The Last Supper was on Wednesday, April 1, AD 33, with the crucifixion on Friday, April 3, AD 33,” Humphreys writes. He believes that his research not only definitively establishes the dates, which have eluded most scholars, but that it resolves an apparent conflict within the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ last days.
“Readers with no sectarian axe to grind, or sling to wield, can take another approach.”
New bibles for old: Writers are re-casting the Scriptures in secular, humanist and satirical ways
Boyd Tonkin explores their differing motivations
 Challenging the church: Titian’s David and Goliath |
What a difference it made tofinish reading AC Grayling’s The Good Book in the city of Buenos Aires. Suddenly, all the current hubbub around the humanist philosopher’s “secular bible”, with its 600-page pastiche-cum-appropriation of the scriptures, faded into a distant background buzz. For inventing or revising systems of value and belief seems to have been a popular pastime in these parts.
On Palm Sunday, I climbed a stairway to heaven built by a man who devised its own creed and then, literally, set it in stone. In 1919, the Italian-born cotton baron, Luis Barolo, funded the construction of a palace (really, a speculator’s block of 400 offices) which mirrors from hellish basement to heavenly turret the structure of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Yet Barolo viewed the poet not as a Christian thinker so much as a pioneer freemason who had filled his epic with the sort of wacky numerology to keep Dan Brown in plots for years. In Buenos Aires, you will also find a museum devoted to the maverick author and artist Xul Soler. He not only liked to fashion composite languages – South American answers to Esperanto – but devised synthetic “universal religions” too. Soler once told a close friend that he had cooked up a dozen fresh faiths in a single afternoon. The friend’s name was (of course) Jorge-Luis Borges.
Has Grayling, with his huge compendium of godless virtue, committed a Barolo-scale folly: an act of self-sabotaging hubris that only goes to show the supremacy of the real, supernatural thing? Or has he, a valiant David armed only with a well-aimed moral sensibility, taken on the Goliaths of dogmatic monotheism and slain them on their home ground? Join one of the armed camps, secular or spiritual, if you prefer to carry on the fight.But readers with no sectarian axe to grind, or sling to wield, can take another approach.
THE FINAL TESTAMENT OF THE HOLY BIBLE – Released Today † FinalTestament.org †
True Blasphemy
Good Friday crucifixions in Philippines
DEVOTEES re-enacted Jesus’s crucifixion in gory scenes while millions of other less extreme faithful across the Catholic Philippines prayed with their families on Good Friday.
A handful of people are traditionally nailed to crosses while hundreds more have their backs whipped until they bleed in Asia’s major Catholic outpost, to remember the day when Christians believe Jesus Christ died 2,000 years ago.In the small farming town of Cutud, a couple of hours’ drive north of Manila, thousands of tourists gathered to watch what has over the years become the biggest and bloodiest Good Friday spectacle.
Back To The Couch
Frey to brave Oprah again
Last Updated: 9:29 AM, April 21, 2011
James Frey is either brave or masochistic. He’s agreed to be one of Oprah Winfrey‘s final guests on her syndicated show, even though she famously filleted him for fabricating details of his best-selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” in 2006. The controversial writer — who was so burned by Winfrey’s wrath that he had to flee to France — will face his former nemesis for a full hour next month to promote his novel, “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible,” out tomorrow. A source told us, “Oprah apologized to James a couple of years ago, and he appreciated it. So he agreed to go back on her show and talk about everything that’s happened over the last five years.” Frey is set to ignite another fire storm with his new book, in which the Second Coming of Christ takes place in the Bronx projects — but the messiah turns out to be a former alcoholic who impregnates a prostitute. It’s being published in a limited edition of 10,000 copies by Gagosian Gallery and as an e-book by Frey and WME. Reps for Winfrey didn’t get back to us.
WIREIMAGE
Also covered at…
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HUFFINGTON POST – “James Frey To Return To Oprah Winfrey Show”
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Fresh Asparagus Soup
VICE: “JAMES FREY’S IMAGINING OF THE SECOND COMING IS FUCKING BONKERS”
from VICE Magazine
THE GOSPEL OF GLUT
JAMES FREY’S IMAGINING OF THE SECOND COMING IS FUCKING BONKERS
Published April, 2011
INTERVIEW BY ROCCO CASTORO
PORTRAIT BY TERRY RICHARDSON
I’m sitting in a conference room at the Vice Brooklyn office across from James Frey. We’re talking, and I’m still not sure exactly how or why this meeting happened, but I’m listening closely. The main topic of our discussion is his new novel, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, which is about the emergence of a radical new Messiah in modern-day New York City. For the first ten minutes or so, his constant chewing of Nicorette distracts me. I get over it quickly, but by my count he goes through at least five pieces in 45 minutes. I can’t figure out whether he is scared about something or the world’s biggest nicotine fiend, and after spending some more time with him I think he might be both.
Besides his new book, James and I also touch on a random assortment of topics: his plan to bypass the publishing industry (at least in America), whether he perpetuates the controversy that seems to follow his every move, why he is wearing an outlandish fur coat, his struggles with religion, his admiration for William T. Vollmann, the art world, and other miscellaneous crap.
“What better time, it would seem, to explore the life of God as Man?”
Come Again?
The second coming in the age of sequels and reboots
Has The Greatest Story Ever Told ever been remade, rebooted or turned into a series of sequels? That question doesn’t refer directly to the 1965 George Stevens epic, which was a a retelling of the story of Jesus Christ from his birth to the Resurrection, starring Max von Sydow as Jesus, but more to the narrative itself, from the most widely read book in the history of Mankind. As the central figure of the New Testament, Jesus is far more than a religious presence; he is a cultural icon, known and referenced with reverence far beyond the world-wide community of believers.
It is curious, though, that as society has anxiously awaited his return, especially in our modern narrative age, we have refrained from speculating as to what manner of man Jesus would be today and how would he respond to life in the New Millennium. The Rapture and the Left Behind series, notwithstanding, The Greatest Story Ever Told stands as too imposing a creative monolith. It is, after all, Gospel?
Controversial author James Frey’s forthcoming novel, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, dares to do just that. Promoting the book on his website, Frey explains: “My goal was not to retell the story of Christ. That has been done, and done well. My goal was to create a new mythology. One that is relevant in a world with nuclear weapons, advanced physics, the internet, genetic testing and manipulation, one where we know homosexuality is not a decision. My goal was to create a mythology, to tell a story, to make a work of art that made sense in a world where we know things that people, and writers, 2000 years ago could never have known or imagined.”
What better time, it would seem, to explore the life of God as Man? Our heroes are darker, more conflicted beings, grappling with ethical quandaries and the nature of morality. Machines have become more human as we have begun to mix and co-mingle with them. If we cannot re-imagine Jesus now and make him relevant, then when?
This isn’t to say that Jesus hasn’t already inspired filmmakers. In signature examples, like The Terminator franchise and The Matrix Trilogy, the messiah looms in the future, he is still to come and he is a rebel fighter, no longer ready and willing to turn the other cheek.
“So this… is how I write a book.”
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.”
PISS CHRIST Art Piece Attacked, Defiled By Uncultured Catholic Agitators
The endless, idiotic outrage about “Piss Christ”
A French gallery displays the now-vandalized work — and shows what real blasphemy looks like
Credit: Wikipedia
The French really know how to get worked up about art. They’ll riot over a ballet; they’ll get whipped into a frenzy over impressionism. And this past Palm Sunday a group of Catholic protesters stormed a gallery in Avignon and defaced Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ.”
The notorious photograph of a crucifix immersed in the artist’s urine has been inciting outrage ever since Serrano unveiled it back in 1987. Thanks to Serrano’s modest NEA grant, Jesse Helms was able to use the work as an excuse to froth over public funding for the arts, and it’s reliably been trotted out as a shining example of all that’s sacrilegious and wicked in art ever since.
James Frey Interview on VBS.tv
A Monobookist Bookstore & Pre-Banning of The Final Testament of The Holy Bible
Book Report: ALA releases list of most-challenged library books
Round-up:1. A bookstore that only sells one book. Author Andrew Kessler celebrated the launch of his new book about the Phoenix Mars mission, “Martian Summer,” by setting up a “monobookist bookstore,” a temporary shop on Hudson Street in New York City. The store will be stocked with 3,000 copies of just his book.2. “And Tango Makes Three” back on the top of the American Library Association’s most frequently challenged books list. The ALA just released the 2010 list of the titles most griped about at American libraries, and Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson’s children’s book about two male emperor penguins who hatch and raise a baby penguin comes in as the No. 1 most challenged. The reasons for the challenges that ALA cites are “homosexuality,” “religious viewpoint” and “unsuited to age group.” Other books that made the Top 10: “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie; “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley; “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins; “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins; “Lush” by Natasha Friend; “What My Mother Doesn’t Know” by Sonya Sones; “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America” by Barbara Ehrenreich; “Revolutionary Voices” edited by Amy Sonnie; and “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer.Just shelved:“The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” by James Frey (hardcover): Speaking of likely-to-be-challenged books, the author of “A Million Little Pieces” has a controversial book for you. Frey tells the story of the second coming of the Messiah. But this Messiah lives in the Bronx and is a pothead who has sex with prostitutes. The book will be released Friday — Good Friday, that is.[ click to continue reading at The Journal Star ]
Lady Judas
Lady Gaga’s ‘Judas’ song and music video deemed blasphemous, sparks outrage from Catholic League
Lady Gaga is no stranger to drumming up controversy – and this time, the eccentric singer has upset members of the Catholic faith.
The 25-year-old’s new song “Judas” was leaked onto the Internet Friday, and has since angered religious figures for its lyrics’ blasphemous tone in which Gaga proclaims she is “in love with Judas.”
The buzzed-about song, and forthcoming music video in which Gaga portrays Mary Magdalene and actor Norman Reedus stars as Judas, includes lyrics such as: “I want to love you/but something’s pulling me away from you/Jesus is my virtue, and Judas is the demon I cling to/ I’m just a holy fool/ oh baby he’s so cruel/ but I’m still in love with Judas, baby.”
Not surprising, the eyebrow-raising lyrics about the apostle who betrayed Jesus have already angered the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
[ click to continue reading at NYDailyNews.com ]
FINANCIAL TIMES, SLATE: “Frey’s Masterpiece”
See the light
Review by AN Wilson
The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, by James Frey, John Murray, RRP£16.99, 400 pages
Cult American author James Frey’s new novel is both a work of art and a bombshell hurled at the religious right. It tackles the Second Coming of Jesus in modern America – with the promised Messiah enacting the deeds the religious right consider most wicked. He is, for example, an active bisexual who supports his prostitute girlfriend when she aborts her first child.Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant: every page is great. Whether you are religious, or bigotedly irreligious, or neither, you will find it disturbing in the best possible sense, in the way that Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” myth is disturbing.[ click to read full review at FT.com ]
MATTHEW (Excerpt from THE FINAL TESTAMENT OF THE HOLY BIBLE)
MATTHEW
BY JAMES FREY
An excerpt from The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, ©2011 James Frey
Below is the world’s first and only sneak peek of James Frey’s The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, which will be released through myriad digital, print, and artistic formats on Good Friday, April 22.
The book takes place in modern-day New York City and is sectioned like the Gospel. Chapters are named after their respective narrators, individuals whose lives have been drastically changed by the protagonist and supposed modern-day Messiah Ben Zion Avrohom. Ben’s speech appears in red type throughout the book, a nod toward red-letter Bibles made popular in the early 20th century that printed Jesus’s spoken words the same way.
Early in the story, Ben is working as a security guard at a skyscraper construction site when a very large and heavy plate of exterior glass falls and flattens him. Against all odds and physical limitations, he survives and awakes from a deep coma to discover that he possesses preternatural abilities and may be fulfilling prophecies foretold in his youth. He proceeds to roam the city and surrounding areas, reuniting with estranged family members, shooting buckets of miracle cum into the orifices of a wide variety of women and men who afterward will be happy forever, denounces the Bible and other organized religion, speaks to the entity humans understand to be God and tells them that He isn’t going to save them, warns that the end is nigh, generally has a good time doing whatever he fancies, and advises others to do so as long as nobody gets hurt.
If you’ve made it this far chances are you are going to keep reading regardless of your predisposition to The Final Testament’s subject matter or how you feel about its author. Lots of media outlets have already made and will continue to make a big, predictable fuss about the book’s release. For now we’re just going to shut up, step back, and let you judge for yourself. We’ll have more to say about James next Monday, the 18th, when we publish an exclusive interview with him and a corresponding episode of VBS Meets… James Frey.
| S |
ome people just ain’t made for the world. Can’t fucking take it. Can’t deal with Momma and Dadda and school teaching you nothing and a fucking job with some motherfucking boss going blah blah blah and bills and neighbors and some kind of bullshit church and having a good credit score and a mortgage and getting married with kids and some kind of mysterious motherfucking retirement plan that don’t ever let you do nothing but put more in and get none back. Lotta people ain’t made for it. They the people you see on the streets, in dirty clothes, talking to themselves, screaming on the corner like they demonized, mumbling and crying, they the ones in your family and your town you always scared of and feeling sorry for and making excuses about, the ones you don’t even thinks is fucking human. They is, they just ain’t made like the rest of you and they can’t deal with it so they go to drinking and getting fucking high and being criminal and getting locked-the-fuck-up and just saying who gives a fuck to all of it. People be thinking they’re crazy and be needing some kind of fucking help, but the help ain’t nothing ’cause a motherfucking soup kitchen or some kind of shelter that can’t hold enough or a nuthouse where we get beat or some charity that’s really about motherfuckers’ friends knowing how good they is and how much they care ain’t nothing but bullshit. And don’t even bring up that made-up motherfucker people be calling God, ’cause that motherfucker don’t even exist, and don’t be bringing up all these so-called houses of God, ’cause they more about killing and hating than they is about helping and loving. Sorry to break the motherfucking news if you ain’t heard it, but that’s it motherfucker, that’s the fucking news.
I been living underground for a long-ass motherfucking time. Living underneath New York fucking City, where there’s tunnels, and there’s tunnels underneath the tunnels, and there’s some more fucking tunnels under those tunnels. Some of ’em empty, some still got trains rolling through ’em, some of ’em gots the subways and some of ’em gots peoples. And then there’s some so dark, so goddamn dark, darker than the darkest night, and blacker than what you see when your eyes closed, that most peoples, even underground peoples, won’t go into ’em. And those are the tunnels where miracles happen, where people like Yahya and Ben go and come back something different, where motherfuckers who got the gift go and in the blackness they see. I know it be sounding crazy, but the ones with gifts got to go into blackness, ’cause that’s where they learn to see.
Read the rest at Vice Magazine: MATTHEW – Vice Magazine
Terry Richardson Puts James Frey On The Cross
James Frey shot by Me for Vice… out now!
Celebrate Record Store Day
This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.
ITN News on The Final Testament of The Holy Bible
This Year’s Hottest Easter Gift
Chocolate Zombie Bunny
- Chocolate Zombie Bunny will destroy you all
- The virus has turned his flesh to delicious white chocolate
- Save the world; bite his head off!
Purveyor Of Best Pizza In Brooklyn Stabbed
Lucali’s Mark Iacono in Hospital After Stabbing Attack
Photo: 31 Days of Pizza
The Daily News is reporting that Lucali owner Mark Iacono is in critical condition after suffering “multiple stab wounds to his throat, back and legs.” A witness told the paper that Iacono was walking on Smith Street this afternoon with an unknown man when an argument broke out — the assailant then stabbed Iacono and fled in a van.
The Portrait Machine Project
SMH: Jesus Is A Horny Drunk
from the Sydney Morning Herald
Jesus is a horny drunk? Welcome back, James Frey
Tim Elliott / April 16, 2011
Photo: Getty Images
The bad boy of American letters tells TIM ELLIOTT his new novel is ”entirely grounded in research”.
Meet Jesus Christ. Not the Sunday school Jesus Christ or the guy you saw in King of Kings, with the high cheekbones and cool beard.
No, meet author James Frey’s Jesus Christ, a horny drunk who gets about in piss-stained pants, a dumpster-diving free love enthusiast who sleeps on benches and has gay sex with Born Again preachers and who, when he isn’t turning water into wine or healing paraplegics, plays video games in his rent-assisted Bronx apartment.
TIME: Is Hell Dead?
Is Hell Dead?
By JON MEACHAM
As part of a series on peacemaking, in late 2007, Pastor Rob Bell’s Mars Hill Bible Church put on an art exhibit about the search for peace in a broken world. It was just the kind of avant-garde project that had helped power Mars Hill’s growth (the Michigan church attracts 7,000 people each Sunday) as a nontraditional congregation that emphasizes discussion rather than dogmatic teaching. An artist in the show had included a quotation from Mohandas Gandhi. Hardly a controversial touch, one would have thought. But one would have been wrong.
A visitor to the exhibit had stuck a note next to the Gandhi quotation: “Reality check: He’s in hell.” Bell was struck.
Really? he recalls thinking.
Gandhi’s in hell?
He is?
We have confirmation of this?
Somebody knows this?
Without a doubt?
And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?
Blasphemy With James Frey & Mark Vernon – 13 April 2011 @ ICA in London
from The Institute of Contemporary Arts
Blasphemy with James Frey & Mark Vernon
13 April 2011
£12 / £11 concessions / £10 ICA Members
James Frey became a best-selling author on the back of his Oprah-approved memoir A Million Little Pieces. This fame turned to infamy when it was revealed that the book was not entirely based on fact and was followed by a public apology on Oprah’s show. In his new (and fictional) book he presents a story of a man who may be the Messiah or may be the second coming of Christ, written in the manner of the Gospels and told by those around him. His publishers expect feathers to be ruffled, especially in the Christian world which may well see his version of Jesus as blasphemous.
Mark Vernon ex-vicar has the dubious honour of being one of the last people in Britain to be charged with blasphemy for content on his gay and lesbian Christian website. His March Radio 4 series In Doubt We Trust looks at the relationship between religion and doubt and how notions of truth and story telling are understood in this context.
This discussion promises to be a fascinating insight into the process of writing fiction, what fiction really is, what its relationship with truth is and what blasphemy might mean today.
Government Laboratory Declares Pot Smokers To Be Single Greatest Threat To The Environment And Human Civilization
from The San Francisco Business Times
Marijuana causes global warming, uses 1% of U.S. electricity
San Francisco Business Times – by Steven E.F. Brown
People growing marijuana indoors use 1 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and they create 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year (not counting the smoke exhaled) according to a report by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
After medical pot use was made legal in California in 1996, Mills says, per-person residential electricity use in Humboldt County jumped 50 percent compared to other parts of the state.
In order to produce some 17,000 metric tons of marijuana this year, Mills estimates authorized growers will use $5 billion worth of energy. That works out to the output of seven big electric power plants.
“From the perspective of individual consumers, a single Cannabis cigarette represents 2 pounds of (carbon dioxide) emissions,” Mills says.
For this report, which he published independently, Mills says he didn’t count the energy used in producing fertilizer, water, equipment and building materials also used in indoor pot farms.
James Frey @ The Grazia Book Club – Tuesday 12 April
Meet James Frey at the Grazia Book Club
Author James Frey is no stranger to controversy. When Oprah Winfrey publicly outed his 2004 best-selling memoir A Million Little Pieces as a fabricated version of his alcohol and drug addiction, he became the literary world’s most hated figure. Publishers dropped him, the media besieged him and readers launched law-suits against him. Now, after two high-selling but under-the-radar novels, he’s at it again releasing the third book of the Bible – where a booze-fuelled, sex-crazed Messiah lives in contemporary Manhattan. ‘The book is an attempt to tell the story of what it might be like if the Messiah was actually alive today living in a world with nuclear weapons, advanced physics, the internet, genetic testing, one where we know homosexuality is not a decision,’ Frey explains. The result is The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, where the protagonist Ben Zion is a man who calls the bible ‘antiquated’ and believes in curing people through sex, since an orgasm is the closest anyone on earth can get to heaven. Intrigued? Well now you’ve got the chance to meet James Frey in person to hear him talk about The Final Testament of the Holy Bible and his other work, alongside a rather civilised glass of champagne and cupcake. Book quick though because tickets are limited!
Hear James Frey discuss The Final Testament of the Holy Bible on Tuesday 12 April at 7pm in Waterstone’s, 193 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6SH. To book tickets, which cost £3, call 020 7937 8432 or email events@kensington.waterstones.com
9-eyes.com (Random Images Captured By Google Streetview Cameras)
GQ: James Frey Fights Back Again
James Frey fights back again
“It’s always been my ambıtion to wrıte the most influential, most widely read, most controversial books of all time…”
As the above statement to GQ illustrates, James Frey is, by any measure, America’s most controversial writer. “I’ve always said it,” he adds, “and I’ll always say it.”
Even if you didn’t know of his notoriety, entering his office, you soon work it out. To the left of his desk hangs a picture with capital letters: “PUBLIC STONING”. In front of the desk hangs a 1982 cover of Sports Illustrated, featuring middleweight champion Marvin Hagler. The coverline reads “The Best And The Baddest”. The message is not subtle. James Frey is controversial. And he wants you to know it.
“When I was a little boy, Marvin Hagler was my idol,” he explains of the cover. “He got no respect for most of his career. His fighting style was straight ahead. He took every shot thrown at him, and he kept punching back ’til he won. I honestly feel that’s how I am. I take big shots from people. But I keep going.”
And he’s had to keep going. Rather than shy away from controversy, Frey has embraced it, built on it, made it his brand.
Take his new book, The Final Testament Of The Holy Bible. Frey wrote it, he says, because writing another chapter of the Bible was the “most audacious thing I could think of doing”. It sees Christ returning in Manhattan, teaching free love and disowning all religions. In America, Frey’s only releasing it in limited slip-cased leather Bibles at Easter. It’s not so much a book launch as an invitation to rumble.
Full Fathom Five, a project he began in 2009, works much like an artists’ studio: Frey comes up with the ideas (all young-adult, all precision-tooled for Hollywood), leaving others to do the actual writing. The money is generous if the book is a success (up to a 49 per cent share in all revenue), but brutal if not (the standard rate for simply finishing a book is £62). So far, four book series have been sold, all under pseudonyms. One has been made into a film – theSpielberg-Bay alien drama, I Am Number Four – with others to come.
The criticism has been swift and widespread, and for each accusation Frey has a swift parry: he’s nicking ideas (“Of the 50 projects on the go, two are outside ideas. Every book we’ve sold, my idea”); he’s exploiting students (“Laughable. The average age of writers who work with us is 31”); he’s ruining the creative process (“It’s because it’s me. If other writers were doing it, it’d be, ‘What a great thing, he’s mentoring young writers!'”); the contracts are unfair (“Nobody has to sign. I don’t lock them in the closet”); he’s exploiting people financially (“The four writers so far have earned an average of $225,000 – if that’s me f***ing people over, everybody should hope to be f***ed over”).
Indeed, some criticism has proved positive. A New York Magazine article by a disgruntled Full Fathom Five writer (“she told friends the whole point of the piece was to get revenge”) ended up being good for business: the next week, over 100 writers got in touch.
The Holy Grail Of Book Publishing
The phrase every publisher craves: word-of-mouth success
JK Rowling, Dan Brown and Lynne Truss have all sold millions with word-of-mouth successes, but what is their secret?
Malcolm Gladwell’s success was aided by his talent as a public speaker. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Word of mouth, a phrase that first crops up in Twelfth Night, is the holy grail of book publishing. Good reviews and literary festivals are all very well. But with the wind of many voices in its sails, a book can reach millions. Word of mouth made Dan Brown and JK Rowling. As the world’s publishers fly into London for the book fair tomorrow, word of mouth will be what they crave for their titles.
Some of them will go to any lengths to stimulate the phenomenon. One leftwing 1930s publisher, Victor Gollancz, used to bribe his staff to read his books on the Underground. No one could miss their lurid yellow covers. Perhaps a casual commuter conversation would inspire sales mania.
With the advent of social networking, word of mouth begins to enter the realm of science, at least in theory. Actually, despite Twitter, Facebook and the rest, publishers are finding it as difficult as ever to mobilise that elusive thing, the viral conversation about a new book that translates into worldwide sales.
That doesn’t stop them from trying. John Murray is about to publish James Frey’s The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, a transgressive version of the Gospels. Frey, a seasoned contrarian, is good at attracting attention, not necessarily of the right kind. Ever since he was exposed for passing off his fiction A Million Little Pieces as a misery memoir, he has been the object of controversy.
Murray has cleverly decided to exploit this with a YouTube video of vox pop interviews about The Final Testament. Murray’s MD, Roland Phillips, says: “We are getting into a new arena. We hope to inspire word of mouth. It’s the best way to sell books, especially today. People don’t like to be told what to read, but to make their own discoveries.”
What, exactly, is this mysterious phenomenon? A comforting short -hand to explain the inexplicable? Dava Sobels’s Longitude got no more, or better, reviews than several other books in 1995, but sold like hot cakes. Tony Parsons’s Man and Boy got a mixed press, but went straight to the top of the bestseller list. Is it just readers on trains and buses, or at dinner tables, telling their neighbour, “You must read this” that does it?
An American Demon
Monstrous Achievement : Jack Grisham Reads From His New Memoir An American Demon 5/14
An American Demon is Jack Grisham’s story of depravity and redemption, terror and spiritual deliverance. While Grisham is best known as the raucous and provocative front man of the pioneer hardcore punk band TSOL (True Sounds of Liberty), his writing and true life experiences are physically and psychologically more complex and unsettling than those of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk.
Eloquently disregarding the prefabricated formulas of the drunk–to–sober, bad–to–good tale, this is an entirely new kind of life lesson: summoned through both God and demons, while settling within eighties hardcore punk culture and its radical–to–the–core (and most assuredly non–evangelical) parables, Grisham leads us, cleverly, gorgeously, between temporal violence and bigger-picture spirituality toward something better.An American Demon flourishes on both extremes, as a scary hardcore punk memoir and as a valuable message to souls navigating through an overly materialistic and woefully self–absorbed “me first” modern society.
“If you’ve ever found yourself unable to turn away from witnessing an accident, crash or natural disaster, you’ll read An American Demon straight through, like I did. Jack Grisham’s memoir is as original as it is horrifying. I couldn’t put it down.” — James Frey, bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces