| The controversy over James Frey’s Oprah Winfrey-touted memoir, A Million Little Pieces, is getting out of hand. After the website The Smoking Gun (usually known for posting disposable tidbits like mug shots and contract riders to show how callow and dumb celebrities are) featured a story claiming that Frey had exaggerated and even fabricated details of his drug addicted past, publisher Random House apparently went into damage-control mode and offered readers their money back. (Random House has since denied this, claiming that it has a standard money-back policy for any book purchased directly from it.)
The scandal, such as it is, doesn’t seem likely to hurt Oprah or Frey. Half of North America still sees her as its literary guru, and selling truckloads of books will ultimately mean more to Frey than what any web blog or angry reader has to say. Frey’s coolness speaks volumes (he’s admitted embellishing some details to write a more palatable book) to those who see him as a junkie Rumplestiltskin, spinning his misery into self-help gold. Regardless, the book, which I read last summer before all this started, is amazing – an unflinching, gonzo-style memoir written out of unapologetic desperation.
What’s got people all riled up is the question of authenticity – how honestly a damaged, strung-out man accurately depicted his life. But in this case, authenticity means nothing. Literary non-fiction, which is what any good autobiography is, will never and can never be reality. What many seem to be forgetting is that, even if it could be, how enlightening would it be? A writer puts pen to paper to filter the facts, to shape chaos into a tangible artifact. What classic works of creative non-fiction like Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood will be remembered for isn’t their strict truth, but their artistry – the way they crafted a version of events based on the data they had at the time.
What’s scary about so many readers feeling betrayed enough to ask for their money back is their inability to differentiate between accountability and art. If the army of Oprah readers saw salvation in Frey’s book, wonderful – he can be proud that his skill as a writer has been validated by the fickle tastes of the book-buying public. It’s no surprise when some brain-damaged Hollywood film makes a fortune, but when a book as great as Frey’s becomes a blockbuster, it’s a victory for art. As for the self-help aspect of the book, readers shouldn’t confuse an account of one man’s strange and fucked-up life with a psychiatrist’s prescription.
McNally Robinson has a few readings this week. The first, on Thursday, January 19 at 7 p.m., has Chris Wiseman and Deborah Miller giving poetry readings with Unashamedly Formal.
Remember the bad poetry you hid under your bed during high school? Editor Sara Bynoe has gathered the best of the worst for her compilation Teen Angst Poetry. Bynoe is signing the book on Friday, January 20 at noon, as well as leading a cabaret performance based on it at the Big Secret Theatre on Saturday, January 21 at 9:30 p.m., as part of the High Performance Rodeo.
Also on January 21 at 8 p.m., Laura Elise Taylor is at McNally to present her biography of three generations of hard-working women, A Taste of Paprika. And on Wednesday, January 25 at 7 p.m., Graham Hancock reads from his new book, Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, an inquiry into the birth of imagination. |
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