{"id":685,"date":"2008-05-16T13:37:36","date_gmt":"2008-05-16T20:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/05\/usa-today-review\/"},"modified":"2010-04-02T09:09:59","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T16:09:59","slug":"usa-today-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/16\/usa-today-review\/","title":{"rendered":"USA Today Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

from USAToday<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n
Disgraced author James Frey rebounds with messy ‘Morning’<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
Updated\u00a05\/16\/2008<\/span>By\u00a0Deirdre Donahue<\/a>, USA TODAY<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"jamesfrey-usatoday1.png\"<\/span>Give the bloodied but clearly unbowed James Frey points for unbridled ambition.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

His truth-challenged memoir\u00a0A Million Little Pieces<\/em>\u00a0may have put Oprah’s knickers in a televised twist, but Frey’s new novel,\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/em>,reveals a massive literary ego in full, flourishing bloom.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0<\/strong>James Frey takes a novel approach with ‘Morning’<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Unfettered by traditional grammar, punctuation or even paragraphs, Frey has pounded out a novel that tries to rip open the raw underbelly of modern Los Angeles. His goal: to reveal the booze-soaked, drug-crazed, porn-addicted Sodom with all its corruption, cruelty and occasional moments of transcendent beauty.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bright Shiny Morning<\/em>\u00a0teems with dozens of characters. Maybe hundreds. Some appear briefly, others stay for the whole book. The central ones: a psycho male movie star, a saintly Hispanic domestic, two Midwestern teens and an alcoholic bum.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

FIND MORE STORIES IN:\u00a0<\/span>Hispanic<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Midwestern<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Oprah<\/a>\u00a0|Oliver Stone<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Quentin Tarantino<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0James Frey<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0A Million Little Pieces<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0John Steinbeck<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Sodom<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Alas, Frey is no John Steinbeck or Dos Passos.\u00a0Morning<\/em>\u00a0is a gusher, too often spouting bad prose, predictable plot turns, and one-dimensional characters (the poor ones are good, the rich one evil).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There’s also constant bad behavior: booze, abuse, crime, murder. Frey also tosses in a celebration of young love that would do a romance writer proud. By the end,\u00a0Morning<\/em>\u00a0reads like a saccharine-sweet Hallmark Special that Oliver Stone wrote and Quentin Tarantino directed.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Frey also includes a tsunami of historical trivia about the city: gang names, riots, highways, movie trivia, floods. Which is kind of neat.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bottom line: If, despite the scandal, you loved\u00a0A\u00a0<\/em>Million Little Pieces<\/em>, you might want to devour\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning<\/a><\/em>. Like its author, it can be called many things, but never boring. Or timid.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

[\u00a0click to read at USAToday<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from USAToday Disgraced author James Frey rebounds with messy ‘Morning’ Updated\u00a05\/16\/2008By\u00a0Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY Give the bloodied but clearly unbowed James Frey points for unbridled ambition. His truth-challenged memoir\u00a0A Million Little Pieces\u00a0may have put Oprah’s knickers in a televised twist, but Frey’s new novel,\u00a0Bright Shiny Morning,reveals a massive literary ego in full, flourishing bloom. MORE:\u00a0James […]<\/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-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversation-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","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=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}