The year following my last at summer camp, James Frey became a counselor. Although I had friends who continued to attend the camp, I wasn’t aware of this until years later. Why would I be? New counselors came and went…business as usual. In fact, it wasn’t until just before the publication of Frey’s book, A Million Little Pieces, that I learned of our (tenuous) connection. The book was to be a chronicle of the author’s drug addiction and rehab, and my camp friend told me that he was pretty astonished by the information he’d gleaned about the book’s contents.
Months later, A Million Little Pieces was released. I paged through it, but found the cover (a vasoline-covered hand with hundreds of tiny candies stuck to it) far more riveting than the prose. The text was affected and rambling, unnaturally stilted and terribly self-aware. The book was not one that lent itself to ambivalence. For every person I met who agreed with me, I met someone else who was entranced as they turned page after gripping page.
I saw Frey speak at a lecture not long after the book’s release and thought he came across in much the way his prose did – too self-conscious and far too concerned with projecting a certain image. He grew up not wanting for anything and was obviously concerned that this would negatively impact his street cred. The last thing he wanted to seem was exactly what he was — a well-to-do suburbanite — and his deep self-loathing masqueraded as arrogance. And that arrogance let to some very hilarious (in spite of himself) interviews. The most famous among them was with the New York Observer, wherein Frey said the following:
On other young writers getting press:
“I don’t give a fuck what Jonathan Safran whatever-his-name does or what David Foster Wallace does. I don’t give a fuck what any of those people do. I don’t hang out with them, I’m not friends with them, I’m not part of the literati.”
On Dave Eggers:
“A book that I thought was mediocre was being hailed as the best book written by the best writer of my generation. Fuck that. And fuck him and fuck anybody who says that. I don’t give a fuck what they think about me. I’m going to try to write the best book of my generation and I’m going to try to be the best writer.”
And most amusingly, especially if you remember that he is from a well-heeled suburban family, the meaning of the initials tattooed on his left arm: “Fuck the Bullshit It’s Time to Throw Down.”
I re-read this in 2006 and desperately want to introduce James Frey is to Kevin Federline — literary and musical analogs. But whatever my opinion, there were enough people out there who bought in. They liked the prose, no matter how disingenuous; they liked the rage, no matter how ersatz. When I saw Frey speak, he mentioned that he was working on his second book, which focused on a relationship he developed in rehab. A friend of mine, who is an author, wondered aloud what was going to happen when Frey had fully mined his rehab experience.
Oprah was not one of the skeptics. Several years after Jonathan Franzen screwed every other contemporary author by publicly rebuking Oprah after she selected his book, The Corrections, for her club, the Big O tried again and featured A Million Little Pieces. It was odd that the book had come out more than two years earlier, but it was a coup for Frey. Now, he had two books in the hopper — anyone who missed out on memoir #1 would learn about it and up-to-date fans would hear all about memoir #2.
In the course of writing this entry, I found a piece on Salon that discusses Frey’s endorsement by Oprah. I think it’s spot-on and by pure coincidence was written by a fellow Frey, Hillary, who incidentally never mentions that she is unrelated to James. (Based on what she wrote, she would be disowned if she were.) She closes, as I might have, had I felt compelled to comment on Oprah’s featuring A Million Little Pieces: “Maybe, after years of coaching from Oprah herself, her acolytes will see Frey’s memoir for what it is: the story of a spoiled boy from the suburbs who nearly lost his life, and then cashed in on his mistakes and the misery he caused to so many people around him.”
Am I bitter that people like James Frey enjoy success? Absolutely. And there may well be a certain pettiness motivating my writing here. However, I have long felt that there was something fundamentally “off” about Frey. Something that always made me wonder if he really cashed in on the misery he caused others. Three weeks ago, I was looking at reviews of his new book, My Friend Leonard, on Amazon when I found that a reviewer had done a careful examination of Frey’s reviews:
My book review, December 28, 2005
Reviewer:Shadow Man (Texas) – See all my reviews
“My Friend Leonard” is an incredible journey. I laughed, I cried, I reflected on my own life…Just when I thought I had read the best book in years……. , July 6, 2005
“My Friend Leonard” is an incredible journey. I laughed, I cried, I reflected on my own life…
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Great stuff!, December 28, 2005
Reviewer:Runion W. (California) – See all my reviews
I’m a huge Frey fan and I have read many reviews here that have touted My Friend Leonard (MFL) in the 5 star category…Great story. Told well. But stylistically awkward. , June 26, 2005
I’m a huge Frey fan and I have read many reviews here that have touted My Friend Leonard (MFL) in the 5 star category…
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It DOES strike twice in one place, December 3, 2005
Reviewer:Patsy Griffin (Yazoo City, MS) – See all my reviews
My Friend Leonard is Frey’s second and even better of two excellent books. It came in the mail on Monday night, and it found a home…
A friend to all, December 15, 2005
Reviewer:Tybo Bill (Queens, NY) – See all my reviews
My Friend Leonard is Frey’s second and even better of two excellent books. It came in the mail on Monday night, and it found a home…
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He did it again, December 7, 2005
Reviewer:Sara Burnett – See all my reviews
I was skeptical and thought that James Frey might have given everything he had with his first major work, A Million Little Pieces.
Amazing – Frey Does It Again, June 20, 2005
Reviewer:James J. Sexton “RocklandDivorce” (New City, NY) – See all my reviews
I was skeptical and thought that James Frey might have given everything he had with his first major work, A Million Little Pieces.
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Leonardo the friend., October 26, 2005
Reviewer:James Beard (San Francisco, CA) – See all my reviews
I read Frey’s first book and loved it but this book far exceeded the excellence of the first. I finished this book literally 12 hours after getting it
He’s my friend, too, October 3, 2005
Reviewer:Delta Cummings – See all my reviews
I read Frey’s first book and loved it but this book far exceeded the excellence of the first. I finished this book literally 12 hours after getting it.
IAbsolutely Beautiful!!!, June 22, 2005
Reviewer:D. ann Bair (Colorado) – See all my reviews
finished this book literally 12 hours after getting it.
I read Frey’s first book and loved it but this book far exceeded the excellence of the first. I finished this book literally 12 hours after getting it.
(For those interested, check out a more honest review.)
I didn’t find this as odd as I did sloppy. I suspect a good many writers have friends and family shill for them. In fact, given the anonymity of the Internet, it’s pretty easy for a writer to shill for himself. Still, it was interesting. There were other negative reviews written by people who had endured rehab and claimed that elements of Frey’s recounting was impossible. I hadn’t read the book, but I certainly couldn’t swallow the idea of a drug rehab counselor chaperoning an addict to a crackhouse. In addition, there was apparently some reference to committing murder in Paris. This seemed really sloppy because this sort of thing would be traceable. If it were true, Frey would risk going to prison; if it here false, he would risk being exposed. I began to wonder if Frey had indeed shilled for himself.
Today’s news essentially confirmed what I (and it seems many, many others) had long suspected. James Frey lied. The really bad news is that I don’t know if Oprah is going to ever want to risk featuring a living writer again. The Smoking Gun, which is typically thorough, went the extra mile in exposing Frey. There are documents upon documents, most of which I haven’t yet read. (What does irk me is that it only required 6 weeks of investigation to unearth the truth. Didn’t any alarm bells go off with his agent or publisher? Is Sean McDonald pissed? Is Nan Talese embarrassed? If not, were they complicit?) At this point, Frey has milked millions of dollars out of two poorly written pieces of fiction. If he wants to continue living in New York, however, he’s probably going to need to get a job at some point or do what every street-wise hustler would love to do…tap into that trust fund.
We close with a bit of irony. Amazon has a feature called the Significant Seven in which authors answer seven questions. This was the third question/answer combination in their series with Frey:
Q: What is the worst lie you’ve ever told?
A: No way I can answer that.
Okay James, what is the second worst lie you ever told?