{"id":1471,"date":"2009-03-26T21:28:57","date_gmt":"2009-03-27T04:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/03\/memoir-as-fact-or-fiction\/"},"modified":"2009-03-26T21:58:34","modified_gmt":"2009-03-27T04:58:34","slug":"memoir-as-fact-or-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/26\/memoir-as-fact-or-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Memoir as fact – or fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

from the Irish Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Memoir as fact – or fiction<\/h1>\n

Thu, Mar 19, 2009<\/p>\n

James Frey acquired an unenviable literary infamy when large parts of his bestselling memoir were revealed to be fiction. He talks to\u00a0<\/em>Fiona McCann<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0about resurrecting his career<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>SO THIS IS the US\u2019s most notorious writer? The man who \u201cduped\u201d Oprah, who, in her words, \u201cbetrayed millions of readers\u201d? The man whose author pictures on the press release for his new book display him bare-chested and tattooed, proudly hoisting two middle fingers to the world? Can this man drinking iced water in the drawing room of Dublin\u2019s Merrion Hotel, dressed in a buttoned-down shirt, beige pants and spotless white Adidas runners, truly be the bad boy of the American book world?<\/p>\n

James Frey in person \u2013 quietly spoken, with a hint of a lisp \u2013 does not immediately fit my preconceptions of the author of\u00a0A Million Tiny Pieces<\/em>\u00a0, a memoir about his recovery from addiction which was given the Oprah Winfrey imprimatur for inclusion in her lucrative book club. When the news emerged that Frey had exaggerated some events in the book and invented others, the chat-show queen requested an appearance on her show, where she dressed him down in front of millions of viewers. Soon after his public castigation, his literary manager dropped him, and his publishers pulled out of an agreed book deal.<\/p>\n

Frey, who by that time had already published the follow-up,\u00a0My Friend Leonard<\/em>\u00a0, and sold millions of books, was suddenly persona non grata. So what did he do? He wrote another book, one he describes as a \u201clove letter\u201d to Los Angeles, called\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/em>\u00a0. And just in case we were in any doubt, the first page elucidates that: \u201cNothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n

He may appear diffident, initially, almost demure, but Frey is at pains to point out that this opening line is where \u201cI lift my middle fingers to all my detractors and I say \u2018come kiss my ass, boy\u2019 \u201d.<\/p>\n

The bad boy is back, with a book he says is \u201cabout what the American dream is in the 21st century\u201d, a dream represented by Los Angeles itself,\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0protagonist. Chasing, and in some cases living, this dream are two small-town kids looking for a new start, a homeless drunk with a conscience, the daughter of immigrant Mexicans working her way through college as a maid, and a successful film star with a secret. As characters, they\u2019ve been decried as cliches, although, according to Frey, it all depends on their treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are recognisable archetypes of the city, but nobody\u2019s ever told the story of them, nobody\u2019s every really taken them seriously,\u201d he says. \u201cI try to take them seriously, not treat them as cliches but as people who have stories and who have lives, and whose stories mean something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their stories are spliced with the history, geography and vital statistics of the city they inhabit, along with lists of gang names, natural disasters and \u201cfun facts\u201d about LA, not all of which, it turns out, are facts at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them actually are fiction,\u201d admits Frey. \u201cSome of the history is just made up, and some of the statistics are just made up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lies, damn lies indeed, yet observing the rules of one genre or another isn\u2019t something that concerns this writer. \u201cWhat matters is the story that\u2019s being told,\u201d he says with growing animation. \u201cWhat matters is \u2018Do I entertain a reader? Do I inform them? Do I change them in some way?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

WHATEVER HE IS doing with\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/em>\u00a0has had critics at loggerheads, with reviews either unrestrainedly effusive or excoriating. Which is fine by Frey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m not going to be cool with is if somebody reads one of my books and just says, \u2018Meh, it\u2019s okay\u2019.\u201d he says. \u201cI want a strong reaction one way or another. If I can invoke great feeling, whether it\u2019s positive or negative, then that\u2019s good. That\u2019s what art should do.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Frey is making art, as he sees it; not memoir, not fiction, but literature. \u201cI don\u2019t care about the labels. I write books, I tell stories,\u201d he says. \u201cI aspire to create literature, so, if anything, is a work of literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he himself may categorise his output as literature, it has not always been received as such, to Frey\u2019s evident delight. \u201cMost of the writers I love weren\u2019t embraced by the American literary establishment,\u201d he says, naming Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski among them. \u201cThey weren\u2019t part of the high-minded literati, and I\u2019m definitely not, and I\u2019m perfectly comfortable living and working outside of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frey places himself within the tradition of such celebrated writers without a trace of self- consciousness. Undeterred by the fact that he is a rich thirtysomething with a wife, two kids and a \u201cvery normal life in New York city\u201d, he clearly revels in the notion of his own notoriety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m comfortable in that space. If you look at the writers I love, all of them were considered during their lifetimes, while they were working. And I wanted to work within that tradition, so that\u2019s the place I am. I\u2019m happy there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It smacks of hubris, and he knows it. \u201cPeople say I\u2019m cocky,\u201d he admits. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m cocky, I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m arrogant.\u201d Even though he has just dropped his own name in a sentence with Bukowski, Baudelaire and Joyce? \u201cI don\u2019t say I\u2019m Henry Miller or James Joyce or Norman Mailer,\u201d he clarifies. \u201cI say I\u2019m busting my ass and working really hard to try to achieve what they achieved. We\u2019ll see if I do it. We\u2019ll see. I believe I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

No sign of doubt there, but plenty of defiance. \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of bad times in my life, and I\u2019ve survived them all. I\u2019ve had hideous times personally, I\u2019ve had hideous times professionally, and I\u2019m still here, I\u2019m still standing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frey is clearly proud of how he has not only beaten his addictions and pieced his personal life back together, but taken on the queen of the American small screen and lived to tell more tales. \u201cI\u2019m still working, I\u2019m still doing what I want, how I want, saying what I want, living how I want, you know. I\u2019m still doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to admire Frey\u2019s audacity, the cheek and chutzpah that kept him writing after being so publicly cast out. \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to give anybody the satisfaction of letting them think that they\u2019d beaten me. I wasn\u2019t going to give them the satisfaction of letting them think that whatever they had to say about me affected me or stopped me or hurt me. If anything, it was another challenge. It was \u2018all right, they think I\u2019m done, it\u2019s time to prove them wrong\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a challenge he clearly relishes, and although Frey\u2019s self-championing as a challenger of the system is grating, it\u2019s easy to understand why his ostracisation by the arbiters of bestsellerdom came as a relief.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you when all the Oprah stuff was happening, I wasn\u2019t comfortable being placed on this pedestal of \u2018Recovery Superman\u2019. I never wanted that,\u201d he says. He has a point. \u201c\u00a0A Million Little Pieces<\/em>\u00a0was designed to be a gob of spit in the face of the self-help industry. It attacked everything that that industry considers holy. And at a certain point it got co-opted by that and became a part of it, and I was horrified. I wasn\u2019t happy that this work, this book that I considered a work of art, got turned into something it wasn\u2019t. So when the controversy happened, I was happy that, although it was personally difficult to deal with, it placed the book back into the space it belongs in, which is literature, literary art.\u201d<\/p>\n

IT\u2019S NOT HARD to imagine how unnerving it must have been to see a work in which he calls himself a criminal repeatedly being embraced by daytime television viewers across the US, yet there is something in Frey that is a little too in love with his banishment from the book clubs of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be a guy who writes books that break boundaries and break rules and go into places that other writers haven\u2019t gone,\u201d he says, reminding me that\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine recently referred to him as \u201cAmerica\u2019s most notorious author\u201d. \u201cI saw and I was like, \u2018all right, it\u2019s worked out\u2019, \u201d he says with no small pride.<\/p>\n

He may have come out fighting from the Oprah showdown, but he is eager to move beyond it. \u201cI think it was a weird moment in America,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think it will be a part of my life, that chapter, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s gonna be the only thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet if the Oprah incident is truly behind him, how does he explain a passage in\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/em>\u00a0, only included in the paperback edition, where a character goes through a pointedly similar experience? In the pages in question, the character, referred to only in the third person, receives a telephone call from the host of the show in question: \u201cWhat she told him directly contradicted all of her public statements . . . He taped everything.\u201d It appears to be a blatant reference to his own experiences with Oprah Winfrey, or is Frey back to his old tricks again?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to get into specifics related to me and Oprah that haven\u2019t been made public already,\u201d he says. Frey is suddenly coy, or is this apparent circumspection simply another way of courting controversy? This is, after all, his chance to get a proper dig at the woman who pulled no punches when she had hers. So is he going to tell us the truth behind this particular story? \u201cNot as long as that tape recorder is on.\u201d So I turn it off.<\/p>\n

Bright Shiny Morning<\/em>\u00a0, by James Frey, is now available in paperback, published by John Murray, \u00a37.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2009 The Irish Times<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>[ click to read at IrishTimes.com<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the Irish Times Memoir as fact – or fiction Thu, Mar 19, 2009 James Frey acquired an unenviable literary infamy when large parts of his bestselling memoir were revealed to be fiction. He talks to\u00a0Fiona McCann\u00a0about resurrecting his career SO THIS IS the US\u2019s most notorious writer? The man who \u201cduped\u201d Oprah, who, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversation-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}