{"id":433,"date":"2008-05-17T14:32:41","date_gmt":"2008-05-17T21:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/05\/james-frey-in-the-hot-seat\/"},"modified":"2008-05-17T14:48:07","modified_gmt":"2008-05-17T21:48:07","slug":"james-frey-in-the-hot-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/17\/james-frey-in-the-hot-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"James Frey In The HOT SEAT"},"content":{"rendered":"

from TimeOut New York<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hot Seat<\/a><\/strong><\/big><\/p>\n

Time Out New York \/ Issue 659 : May 14\u201320, 2008<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

James Frey<\/span><\/p>\n

The fabulist author has got friends in low places. Really.<\/span><\/p>\n

By John Sellers\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Illustration: Rob Kelly<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Other than a recent feature in\u00a0Vanity Fair,<\/em>\u00a0James Frey has kept a low profile since his January 2006 televised smackdown by Oprah Winfrey. That infamous episode came, of course, shortly after a muckraking website found numerous inaccuracies in his best-selling addiction memoir,\u00a0A Million Little Pieces<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0and shamed not only Frey but the publishing industry as a whole. This week, the 38-year-old New York resident will face both fans and foes when he sets out on a tour to promote his new book,\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/a><\/em>\u2014which Frey unequivocally and absolutely promises is complete fiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Time Out New York<\/em>: In\u00a0Vanity Fair,<\/em>\u00a0you said you weren\u2019t doing any more press. What gives?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>There are two answers to that. The first is that I felt more comfortable doing that interview than I expected to. And second, my publisher asked me to do more press, and it\u2019s my job to do what my publisher asks me to do.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Are you nervous about reading in public?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>Of course I\u2019m nervous. It\u2019s going to be interesting to see what happens. I\u2019m sure there\u2019ll be some people there who want to yell at me.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: There could be a riot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, I hope there\u2019s no riot. But if there is, at least I know I\u2019ll be safe.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Right. You hired the Hells Angels to handle security on the book tour.<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes. At some of the venues.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Do you really need security?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>We don\u2019t know. I do get pretty harsh hate mail.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Like what?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>Some guy sent me a letter saying he hoped I got ass cancer and died in front of my wife and kid. I got another that said, \u201cI want to cut your head off and shit down your neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Wow, maybe you do need security. It would suck to be decapitated and then used as a toilet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>Yeah. Obviously I hope that never happens. It would be pretty unpleasant. Although once my head came off, I guess I wouldn\u2019t have to deal with any of the rest of it.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Why the Hells Angels?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>I wrote a movie about the Hells Angels for Tony Scott. I spent time with them. They\u2019re fun guys to hang out with. Frankly, they\u2019re very intimidating. I feel very safe around them.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: They\u2019ve given you a nickname, haven\u2019t they?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>They haven\u2019t given me a nickname.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Come on! Not Chuckles? They don\u2019t call you Chuckles Frey?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>No. But if they start calling me that I\u2019ll let you know.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Do the Hells Angels know that you wrote a movie in 1998 named after a George Michael song?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>What,\u00a0Kissing a Fool<\/em>? I don\u2019t know. That hasn\u2019t ever come up.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Maybe it shouldn\u2019t. Will\u00a0Father Figure<\/em>\u00a0be your next novel, then?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>Yeah. Or maybe\u00a0Patience<\/em>. In big capital letters.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Do you have any other embarrassing musical influences?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>New Edition. \u201cPopcorn Love\u201d and \u201cCandy Girl\u201d are classic songs from my childhood. Occasionally in the car I listen to channel 3 on Sirius Radio, which is love songs.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Really? You strike me as a Hootie and the Blowfish kind of guy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>I saw Hootie once at the Wetlands and I gotta say, they actually sorta rocked. And when they played \u201cHold My Hand,\u201d my fist was in the air.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Do you feel any vindication that only about 1,600 people actually asked for the refund offered by Random House for\u00a0A Million Little Pieces<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>You know, I can\u2019t discuss any of that. I can\u2019t discuss any legal anything.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: Did everybody in your family take their copies back?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>[Laughs<\/em>] They might have and didn\u2019t tell me. That\u2019s pretty funny. I\u2019ll call my mom and ask her.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: It seems to me that someone could make a pretty decent living going door to door rounding up copies of your book and returning them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>There\u2019s probably much easier and less complicated ways to try to make money. But they probably could.<\/p>\n

TONY<\/em>: So. Oprah. Did you send her a copy of\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Frey:\u00a0<\/strong>I certainly didn\u2019t. I don\u2019t know if my publicist did. I profoundly doubt it.<\/p>\n

Bright Shiny Morning<\/a>\u00a0(Harper, $27) is out now.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

from TimeOut New York \u00a0 Hot Seat Time Out New York \/ Issue 659 : May 14\u201320, 2008 James Frey The fabulist author has got friends in low places. Really. By John Sellers\u00a0 Illustration: Rob Kelly Other than a recent feature in\u00a0Vanity Fair,\u00a0James Frey has kept a low profile since his January 2006 televised smackdown […]<\/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-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversation-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","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=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}