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 ‘Smoking Gun’ Shoots Holes in BestsellerPosted on Jan 9, 2006The Smoking Gun: Three months ago, in what the talk show host termed a “radical departure,” [Oprah] Winfrey announced that “A Million Little Pieces,” author James Frey’s nonfiction memoir of his vomit-caked years as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal, was her latest selection for the world’s most powerful book club. In an October 26 show entitled “The Man Who Kept Oprah Awake At Night,” Winfrey hailed Frey’s graphic and coarse book as “like nothing you’ve ever read before. Everybody at Harpo is reading it. When we were staying up late at night reading it, we’d come in the next morning saying, ‘What page are you on?’” In emotional filmed testimonials, employees of Winfrey’s Harpo Productions lauded the book as revelatory, with some choking back tears. When the camera then returned to a damp-eyed Winfrey, she said, “I’m crying ‘cause these are all my Harpo family so, and we all loved the book so much.” | story SHARE THIS TRUTHDIG ARTICLE:
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Jump to Comments
By Chris Welzenbach, January 11, 2006 at 10:01 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
What struck me about the passages cited in thesmokinggun’s expose was Frey’s dreadful fifth-grade-level prose. What now strikes me about the comments on this scandal that I’ve seen posted is the number of women who have both read this awful book and who claim to have been “touched” or “affected” by it. The passages cited by thesmokinggun were not only unbelieveable, but were unreadable in the bargain, yet comment after comment includes language such as “I couldn’t put it down” or “I was mezmerized.” Is English still taught in this country?
Report thisBy Nicole, January 11, 2006 at 8:02 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The author may have stretched the truth, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. He did not say he was directly involved in the deaths of the girls from the train accident. He mentioned he was somewhat involved and he mentioned that there was one girl not two was killed. Honestly, I don’t know what to think.
Report thisBy Jim, January 10, 2006 at 3:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Most people really liked the book because they knew the person who they were reading about survived it. The danger of the book is that it seems to degrade proven treatment programs. I gave my wife’s copy of the book a try and after a chapter realized it was poorly written and untruthful. As someone who has survived addiction I know that no educated person in addictions would have beleived and/or recommended this book to an addict. Hopefully not too much damage has been done.
Report thisBy Jim, January 10, 2006 at 11:16 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Is this true? This is pretty frightening if it is. I really liked the book because the guy seems so real and so full of pain. I guess we have to watch what we believe. He could have just made it a fiction title and used the information…
Report thisBy Roddy von Seldeneck, January 10, 2006 at 11:11 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I read A Million Little Pieces a few months ago. I then read the sequel, My Friend Leonard.
Report thisI was mesmerized by the fantastic nature of the whole situation surrounding this guys life.
I thought, and told people, “I think this guy may be the toughest person that has ever lived.”
I told people to read both.
I talked about it with my friends, family, and strangers.
I was inspired by it, I cried from it, I was astonished by it.
And now, I must say, I feel like an idiot.
Thinking back, I remember cautioning some of the people whom I talked to about it that it was not a story that should be looked at as some Road to Recovery process book....because the odds against what he was claiming happened to him--what he had accomplished with the help of his iron will and the Tao Te Ching--were very slim. Very few people ever maintain a life of perfect sobriety after their first time in Rehab, even less do if they don’t involve themself in some kind of ongoing recovery process. I should know, I am a recovering Crack Addict.
However, I am not questioning whether or not he has remained sober, I’m sure that he has, but it now seems that he has a knack for the SENSATIONAL, and feels no remorse in totally embellishing a story to sell it. I really feel like it is too bad to find this stuff out...if you don’t think it matters, I respectfully disagree: truth is powerful, fiction is powerful, but fiction that is presented as truth is just lame.