Motoko Rich reports in today’s New York Times that A Million Little Pieces author James Frey has signed a book deal with HarperCollins for his first novel, Bright Shiny Morning. But of course Rich could not resist trying to catch the Pieces prevaricator in yet another lie: after being asked to confirm that he’d also sold a collection of short stories, Frey is quoted as responding, "I have never written a short story in my life." At which point Rich pulls out the smoking gun: Frey, she writes “published a short story last fall in a catalog for an exhibition” by photographer Malerie Marder!
Now, I’m no fan of James Frey (he’s got plenty of them), but Rich’s kicker seems like a cheap shot. Everybody knows Frey’s not a short story writer, so can’t he use any hyperbole without having some work-for-hire (or work-for-a-pal) piece thrown back in his face? As editors at the Times know better than anyone, writers (Jayson Blair, Judith Miller, Rick Bragg, Charlie LeDuff, to cite a handful of recent examples from the paper of record itself) sometimes play fast and loose with the truth. Those of us who read the Times every day have tried to give the paper the benefit of the doubt and move on. Shouldn’t the Times — not to mention the rest of us — do the same for James Frey, now that he’s been punished and is finally doing what he should have done from the start: label his work as fiction?
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I agree. Sounds like what Rich did is incredibly petty. Like you said, he’s not a short-story writer by trade, so who cares if he had ONE published last fall.
I mean, EW was gracious enough to publish one of my Must List suggestions a few weeks ago, but I don’t go around telling people I write for the magazine.
Good point about the Times. I hope Frey sticks to fiction and is smart enough to let his work speak for him. He has enough publicity to sell his book while staying off talk shows for a while.
WGAS????? So over all of this petty BS.
Wow, and I thought ‘Nipplegate’ was the only story I was sick of hearing about.
Umm…I guess I’m a dissenting opinion by a technicality. Since the information is already out there for me to judge, I say that if he’s only written one story before, why not answer the question of whether he writes them with “Not reallY”? Or else “It doesn’t interest me”? There’s just no point in the exaggeration.
I say technicality, though, because in the end it’s something I really don’t care about, you know? And that IS a nitpick…save the smoking guns for the big issue or at least a number of smaller ones.
In conclusion, both sides fail, in that apathetic kind of way.
Fair enough. Do you think Oprah will select it for her book of the month club? (crickets chirrping) Hellllo? Anybody??
This isn’t much of a story, at least not yet. The question is, will the people who enjoyed Frey’s first two books be willing to give the novel a try? But we won’t know the answer until the book is actually available. I’ll probably buy it myself.
The New York Times’ “gotcha” moment with Frey sounds ridiculous. If only they could be that nitpicky with government leaders!
As for whether Oprah will choose the book, who cares? Maybe she’ll like it and invite him on for a “forgiveness” segment. But I hated the way she made the last Frey scandal all about her, and I wouldn’t want her to do the same with the new book, especially if it’s good and deserves to stand on its own merit.
Holy crap can’t they just leave the poor man alone? Not that it didn’t totally rock the institution in terms of the fairly ‘flexible’ term of ‘memoir,’ but the man’s obviously a writer. Just let him write. You don’t have to buy his books. Wasn’t the slaying on Oprah enough?
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