The Smoking Gun has accused James Frey to task for what they claim are inaccuracies, and falsehoods in his best-selling memoir, A Million Little Lies. According to them, the title is more than appropriate. You can read the article here or in the New York Daily News here. According to them, pretty much everything in the book is a lie, including an and the to quote Mary McCarthy on Lillian Helman, another author who was accused of lying in her memoir Pentimento. Anyone remember the movie Julia with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave? Vanessa Redgrave won an Academy Award for portraying Julia, a woman who may never even have existed.
The website charges that he either wholly fabricated or wildly embellished the stories in his book. They've had investigators searching for evidence of the arrest records of Frey who claims to have been wanted in 3 states at one point. The whole matter has spooked James Frey so much that his lawyer has threatened to sue The Smoking Gun. You can see a copy of the letter on the site.
This brings up a whole kettle of worms about what is non-fiction. If you are writing a memoir, and you embellish the story, change facts around, inflate situations, deflate situations, are you still writing non-fiction or are you writing fiction? Should you punch up the story for dramatic reasons? In this day and age, when it's very easy to check facts, like the Smoking Gun, are you shooting yourself in the foot by not being truthful? Should there be a disclaimer in the front stating that's what you've done?
So far, the Smoking Gun has only been able to find two mug shots for James Frey which you can see on the website. One where he clearly has chicken pox which is why he was released from custody. But what really pissed off the Smoking Gun was James Frey's claim in his book that he felt responsible for a friend getting killed in a car accident, where her boyfriend's car was struck by a train. Apparently, that story had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
Does it matter than James Frey may have made most of A Million Little Lies up, if he's able to send a message to others who may be suffering from drug addiction? If you, as a reader, were moved by his story, does it matter if it's true or not. The message boards on his site are filled with messages of support from people who don't really care whether or not the book is true. They responded to the message of getting off drugs and reclaiming your life.
Is he any different from other writer's like Lillian Hellman who also clearly fabricated portions of her memoirs to sell books? James Frey has said that he initially had intended the book to be published as fiction, but it was his publisher's decision to publish it as non-fiction. Perhaps they would have been wiser to do so.
The irony of all this, is that the book will probably sell more copies now. Nothing like a scandal to make books fly off shelves.
What do other people think? And what response to we think Oprah will have to all of this?
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