To Zac—please do us the favor and take this site off of your bookmark—if you can’t see the political, socialogical, and economic importance of this story than maybe you should stick with reading the Hardy Boys. 
This incident represents another lowering of the BAR—the bar being the gauge we Americans view to determine if our culture has descended one more notch lower to the primitive.

is not pretty ridiculous that this kind of people, telling lies to make you feel something and cry, to move you and follow them wherever they want to manipulate you ,gets away with those actions??
I am talking about Mr.Frey, Ms.Winfrey and Mr.Bush and company.
seems people can get away with telling lies.
and happy about it.
they even support each other.
then, of course, this chapter will be part of their memoirs.
and accounted as lies ??
or embelishment towards the story?
what a pack of non ethical and arrogant people they are
fictional or non-fictional.
,

“Partly because it’s a hybrid form, there’s little accountability for memoirists and, as in other areas of contemporary culture, a lot of getting away with murder. While Hillary Rodham Clinton may be bound by some irrefutable facts, who can contest her personal memories? Some writers say they’re writing strictly what they remember; some that they recognize no boundary between fact and fiction; some lie outright and tell the reader; others, like Gornick, reject traditional journalistic standards for a deeper emotional truth. All claim they’re writing memoir.”

To satisfy my curiosity I referred to an artifact from the past—a 1984 edition of “Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary,” it describes a memoir as an:  official note or report; a narrative composed from personal experience; an autobiography or an account of something noteworthy. 

The “metamorphosis” of memoir over two decades is quite interesting—-a hybrid using the literary notion of poetic license to allow a book to be not quite fact but not quite fiction. So would that mean that the information we obtain from mainstream news would be considered memoirs?

The Deconstructed Writer

As Best as She Can Half-Remember

By Helen Epstein

Sunday, August 24, 2003; Page B04

What is memoir?

“A tale taken from life,” writes memoirist Vivian Gornick, “related by a first-person narrator who is undeniably the writer. Beyond these bare requirements, it has the same responsibility as the novel or the short story. . . . What actually happened is only raw material; what the writer makes of what happened is all that matters.”

In a lecture to writing students at Goucher College in suburban Baltimore last month, Gornick, a longtime heroine to nonfiction writers, surprised her audience when she spelled out in more detail just what she meant by that. Over a 30-year writing career, Gornick said, she had created composite characters, “composed” scenes and juggled time frames to advance her narratives, according to a student who wrote about the event for Salon.com. NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan then accused Gornick of having violated the nonfiction “contract” between writer and reader.

News of this latest skirmish over ethics in memoir quickly spread via the Internet to writing colonies, workshops and summer programs around the world, and to the legions of other people in the writing establishment. Hundreds of colleges and universities now offer instruction in memoir or “creative” or “literary” non-fiction, reflecting the trend of professionalization of the arts as well as a response to the way theoretical concerns have edged out the study of writing in many English departments.

There was a time when an aspiring writer would sit down to try to write a novel; nowadays, he or she is more likely to attempt a memoir. The popularity of the autobiographical is mirrored in performance art, docudramas, documentaries and maybe even reality television.

It’s because so many readers are interested in “what actually happened” that Gornick’s remarks hit a nerve. Novelists advertise their work as a product of the imagination and often emphasize that in a prefatory disclaimer. Memoirists, on the other hand, claim their work as a representation of actual or, as Honor Moore puts it, “vividly half-remembered” experience. Some, like the late Mary McCarthy, alert the reader to having taken certain liberties with their narrative, but many do not. What is the memoirist’s contract? Should memoirists tell readers that they have changed names and places, “composed” scenes, made up characters, rearranged time? Are there any rules?

Earlier in the summer, Patricia Hampl and I had been discussing those questions with students at a writing program in Prague. She had come to memoir from poetry, where no one expects verifiable facts. Instead, “there’s a convention—even a cliché—that’s called “poetic license.” I came to memoir from journalism, where facts are supposed to be the currency. I had been trained to write in the third-person voice, strive for objectivity, hold memory suspect, pursue several kinds of documentation, honor accuracy and submit my work to the scrutiny of trained, hands-on editors.

While accuracy in memoir is also a matter of honor, few of the other conventions apply. The first-person enjoys unchecked authority; objectivity has been debunked as a canard; literary and scientific theory question the validity of memory; and the economics of publishing have made hands-on editors nearly extinct. Memoir is a hybrid form, integrating techniques of fiction, poetry, travel writing, journalism, historiography and the essay. That’s one of the reasons writers like it. They get to “show and tell,” as Hampl puts it.

Partly because it’s a hybrid form, there’s little accountability for memoirists and, as in other areas of contemporary culture, a lot of getting away with murder. While Hillary Rodham Clinton may be bound by some irrefutable facts, who can contest her personal memories? Some writers say they’re writing strictly what they remember; some that they recognize no boundary between fact and fiction; some lie outright and tell the reader; others, like Gornick, reject traditional journalistic standards for a deeper emotional truth. All claim they’re writing memoir.

In her book “I Could Tell You Stories,” Hampl dates the appearance of memoir in the West to the year 397 when the Roman Catholic bishop Augustine, living in what is now Algeria, wrote what he called his “confessions in thirteen books.” Unburdened by post-modernism or psychoanalytic theory, believing that the examination of memory was the only sure road to self-knowledge and autobiography the clearest way to articulate it, his confessions demonstrate “the passionate nature of the pursuit of meaning as it courses through a life.”

Augustine was concerned primarily with his relation to God, as were the earliest female autobiographers, such as Hildegard of Bingen or Saint Teresa of Avila. They were not primarily literary people. Nor were subsequent memoirists—aristocrats, public officials, the rich and successful who wished to document their triumphs. Some used the form to record family lineage; others, like Gluckl of Hameln, a 17th-century Jewish woman in Hamburg, used it to leave behind an ethical will for her children. It was unusual for a member of the literati to resort to memoir; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, though, used it to rebut slander and hold up his life as a model.

Most good memoirs are like picaresque novels of the soul, journeys of intellectual quest where the author’s gradual understanding of the meaning of experience is as interesting as the experience itself. As V. S. Naipaul has written: “However creatively one travels, however deep an experience in childhood or middle-age, it takes thought (a sifting of impulses, ideas, and references that become more multifarious as one grows older) to understand what one has lived through or where one has been.”

Because it is so strongly rooted in the specifics of time and place, memoir depends as much on accurate rendition of facts as on the writer’s intellectual and emotional honesty. “When we label a piece of writing non-fiction,” writes Philip Gerard in his book “Creative Nonfiction,” “we are announcing our determination to rein in our impulse to lie. . . . The hardest part of writing creative nonfiction is that you’re stuck with what really happened—you can’t make it up.”

In my own writing, I’ve certainly been tempted to lie: to secretly conflate two incidents into one or two similar people into one in the way some social scientists and psychotherapists writing case studies routinely do. I’ve often wished to rewrite the artistically inconvenient way things really happened. But I don’t like reading about composite characters even when the author has let me know about them. I’ve learned that altering anything—even the names that I’ve sometimes been compelled for legal reasons to change—compromises the integrity of the work.

When we read powerful memoirs of private life such as James Baldwin’s personal essays, Eva Hoffman’s “Lost in Translation,” Tobias Wolff’s “This Boy’s Life,” Maxine Hong Kingston’s “Woman Warrior,” Esmeralda Santiago’s “Almost a Woman,” Jan Morris’s “Conundrum” or Kay Redfield Jamison’s “An Unquiet Mind,” their impact derives not only from their aesthetic power but from our trust that the authors are writing about actual people and events. This is crucial in 19th-century slave narratives and 20th-century survivor memoirs from every continent.

Like Maureen Corrigan, I’m a fan of Gornick’s many books and was surprised by her reported remarks at Goucher. The degree of literary license, like taste, may be one of those things you can’t argue, and the line between representation, composition and invention can be very hard for writers themselves to discern. But I think they should tell the reader what they think they’re doing. That’s what makes memoir not fiction.

Helen Epstein is the author of five books of nonfiction, including “Where She Came From: A Daughter’s Search for her Mother’s History” (Plume). She lives in Massachusetts.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Well, I tried to add a comment hours ago, but it never got posted. What gives? No, it’s not an important story but it’s delicious psychology. Oprah hardly could get through the phone lines? A real laugh. Anyone who knows anything about show biz knows there’s a separate, private line for celebrities, and unless Brad and What’sherpregnantname were tying it up, she got through easily. As for calling at the last minute - that takes nerve. Waiting to decide whether to support his outed behind or condemn it, wouldn’t be surprised if she consulted her personal attorney before phoning. Sliding into Cooper’s show - how rude (and then he spent the first minutes of his program bowing to her highness). As a hostess herself, she knows better than anyone to keep track of time. What she was doing was so loud I could hardly hear what she was saying.Please post this one. It makes salient points and contains no prophanity.

I read the book and suspected much of it was embellished if not total bs.  I don’t anyone can get a rootcanal without anestesia (com’on!). That said, I think it can still be inspirational for those who struggle with additions.  However, now that I know much of it has been fabricated I’m angry that I had to suffer through his awful prose.  He’s such a hack.

“If you feel it, it must be true.”  The battle cry of the army of Oprah fans, many of them (sadly) intelligent people.  They just choose not to use their intelligence.

I’m not at all surprised that Oprah didn’t hold Frey to a high moral standard—she of the High Moral Standards. Oprah hasn’t been able to admit she was wrong since back before she got her teeth fixed and had a 24-hour-a-day stylist.

The woman is evil.  I wish more pundits had the guts to say it.

As for Frey—he’s just another cheatin’ writer.  There’s a whole generation of them out there. Anyone who thought his book was brilliant deserved to be duped. Addiction-as-diva-maker.

Feh!

Yes! The fact that he allowed her to run overtime. To me, that’s the most revealing insight. Only for the next host, Cooper, to spend an additional 3 minutes gushing over him. Not only is she more special than the average caller, she waited until the very last moment to call. Why? Mulling over whether to support or condemn him? Perhaps with the advice of her attorney?

No, it’s not particularly important as stories go. But the psychology of the people involved is absolutely delicious.

“Like Bill Clinton, Winfrey is an empath-demon: Her warm timbres, the depths of sincerity in her voice, the feeling that she is just one of us common folk and, of course, her ability to speak well on just about anything gives her a brainwashing charisma. The woman is so accessible and convincing as an Everyman that you even buy her complaint that she had a hard time getting through on the show’s call line!”

Fortunately, I was spared reading Frey’s “memoir,” but I did view Larry King’s interview and found your recounting of Oprah’s loyalty to James Frey accurate.

But what could Oprah do; admit that her producers were duped—so why not just “schmooze” your way through with some psycho-babble, stating that as long as it helped someone—it was real enough.  How touching—it just warms your heart.

What was really interesting, is that Frey tried to have the book originally published as FICTION—-but like most authors had no takers—-so I guess when you get desperate enough, why not just switch GENRES—-Fiction for one publisher becomes non-fiction for another-—enie, meenie, minie, mo choose the genre as you go-—some say fiction, some say not, it makes no difference because I GOT PAID A LOT!

Mr Frey and Ms Winfrey both seem to think it’s OK for a writer of nonfiction memoir to never let the facts get in the way of a good story.  Frey lies about his past and Oprah says it’s OK. 
Perhaps Ms Winfrey would like to help out President Bush with his little white lie over WMD’s.
The ‘worthy lie’ seems to be the new American ethic…long may it wave.

Clearly the people defending this guy did not read the Smoking Gun article, which absolutely destroyed this guy’s whole story—not pointed out “embellishments.” He wasn’t in jail people! Ever! That was central to so many elements of the two books! Remember: His girlfriend died because he was in jail! He read to Porterhouse every night in jail!

What this shows is that James Frey, who holds himself above 12-Step (even though it is at the basis of the rehab clinic, Hazeldon, that saved him), simply replaced one addiction (drugs, alcohol) for another (seeking public attention through compulsive lying).

Perhaps he should join Jon Lovitz’ old SNL charactor in “Pathological Liars Anonymous.” Yeah, that’s the ticket!

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/85/85bliar.phtml

Avni makes 2 good points in her essay on Frye. First the fact that all kinds of interviews (including public hearings) have become a mockery. The point of a public debate or hearing used to be to ellicit answers to the questions being asked. Not anymore. Frye and Alito are only the latest 2 examples (following in our president footsteps) to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that the whole point of a public debate is to blur whatever truth may have been uncovered.

Avni’s second point is even more relevant. It concerns the nature of Oprah’s intervention. Truth, honesty, objectivity,authenticity, those are old fashioned values that don’t play anymore with the american public. You must “feel it” (or alternately, not feel it) that’s the only relevant arbiter. Imagine the following scene (if you did not witness it on TV): Mrs Alito choking to tears during one rough moment at her husband’s confirmation hearings: that was the only real moment that grabbed viewers because every one of them could feel it (or not feel it , by assuming it was a fake choke). As for the hearing itself—meaningless words on top of words. I don’t remember which TV channel called Mrs Alito tears the most poignant (or seminal) moment of the hearings, confirming to all viewers that those tears were the only moment when the hearings acquired a real immediacy and relevance. So we learned from this TV channel that the appointment of a supreme court justice and the future course of the US supreme court and the country were being decided less on a candidate qualifications or opinions (about which we learned nothing since dodging questions was the name of the game) than on his wife’s tears. If only the democrats had had the cleverness some years ago of asking Anita Hill to cry on the stand instead of remaining composed throughout the hearings, judge Thomas would probably never have been confirmed, because we would have all “felt it” for the woman’s ordeal. As Avni reminds us, “if you feel it” it must be real, it must be right, regardless of what reason, judgment and common sense dictate. Avni is absolutely correct, except that in the Frye episode Oprah is only but a pale reflexion of a profound disease that is undermining the very fabric of our society.

Before you all spew your comments on Frey’s book READ it and then write about it. It is a fantastic book and is an inspiration to many people. The book is about the power of love and friendship and a story of redemption. Frey said in 2003 that he thought it should be published as a piece of fiction. His publishers decided not to do so. So all of you out there who are moralizing give it a rest and just read the book. You might learn a thing or two. Mainly forgiveness.

I read the book and have to admit that it was very gripping, intriguing, interesting, and such a page turner.  However in the end I was very disappointed and agree with some of your commenters statements about the book being total bullshit.  I have first hand experience with family members who dealt and are still dealing with addiction.  It seemed to me as if Frey was on a personal mission to tell the world that he didn’t believe in AA or especially any “higher power” (i.e. god, Buddah, nature, or whoever you choose) and was able to kick his addiction on his own just because he’s a bad-ass.  If his credibility is in question, then who knows what is true.  It’s a sad message to send to people struggling with a disease.  The reporter on this story nailed it with the following quote ... “Never mind that a big part of sobriety is supposed to be telling the truth and being accountable for one’s actions. Never mind that memoirs are supposed to draw their authority in proportion to their connection with reality…” !!!  Sorry, but an addict or not, I couldn’t connect with a liar.

I wasn’t going to read it anyway. As a scpetic and a cynic, anything I see people picking up like it’s the davinci code is not going to end up on my book pile. As a member of AA, I’ve been there done that. Memoir always have “embellished moments”...SO WHAT!!! I thought this website was about reporting “important” news. A story like this belongs on entertainment tonight. I’m taking this site off my bookmark list and never returning.

I wasn;t going to read it anyway. As a scpetic and a cynic, anything I see people picking up like it’s the davinci code is not going to end up on my book pile. As a member of AA, I’ve been there done that. Memoir always have “embellished moments”...SO WHAT!!! I thought this website was about reporting “important” news. A story like this belongs on entertainment tonight. I’m taking this site off my bookmark list and never returning.

But really, who cares? Maybe you, the media, the literati, but if you were to ask the general American public about whether they care about the scandal, I’m willing to bet that they don’t. The book was an excellent and intriguing read and I seriously doubt that many in Oprah’s viewing audience even knew there was a distinction between memoirs and fiction when they picked up that book.

A more important question might be directed at Oprah’s influence which was pointed out in this article. That she can make or break authors, industries and general sentiment makes her, as we all know, an enormously powerful figure. Was there any underlying meaning in her statement, “The bigger thing is what is this going to say to the world about the memoir category. The bigger question is what does this mean for the larger publishing world?” But hey, who here among us believes that Oprah can do any wrong?

I reviewed Frey’s book rather skeptically when it was originally published. The review was distributed by AlterNet.Org on April 7, 2003. It appears on my own website at http://www.cafecancun.com/bookarts/frey.shtml

To me, “A Million Little Pieces” was another example of very convincing drug war propaganda. I wrote:

Despite the Burroughs-inflected literary tics, this is an emotionally penetrating narrative that faithfully portrays the institutional rehabilitation process. It’s very commercial, too. Unlike “Naked Lunch,” it would make a nice gift for a friend considering detox (one of the Bush girls, maybe?), whether as a warning or a comfort. Faithful to hallowed marketing considerations going back to St. Augustine, all users are portrayed as hopeless addicts. Drug rapture is described in physical and sexual terms and always leads to horrible crashes. There are no hints that self-medication can be a very effective form of self-treatment for emotional and physical maladies.

James Frey operates in a literary zone where the worst case rules to the exclusion of all others. You can’t write about the masterpieces that are created while enraptured, the psychological knots untied, the revival of the sheer joy of living. No one can handle drugs. Period. Got that clear? Begin writing. These days, when so many successful folks routinely rely on weird brain torques without requiring professional detoxification, it’s not easy to get a gifted writer to fit a book into this Procrustean headlock, much less sign it. It appears that “Go Ask Alice,” by Anonymous, the eternally best-selling classic teenage descent-into-drug-hell tale, supposedly based on a fifteen-year-old girl’s diary, was faked. As far as anyone can tell, there never was any teenaged girl’s diary. Beatrice Matthews Sparks, a Mormon lady from Utah, most likely made it all up.

In “A Million Little Pieces”, they’ve got something better—a real (and very talented) writer with a real story who believes very firmly in individual responsibility. The author portrays himself as quite heroic in both his rebellion and his determination to quit, reminding me of John Galt in “Atlas Shrugged.” Although it has some synthetic moments, the book is obviously sincere, but the resolution finally boils down to “Just say no.”

Memoirs that are presented as non-fiction should be non-fiction, otherwise they should be called autobiographical novels. We tolerate a certain amount of self-serving retrospective falsification in the memoir because it is a human characteristic. In Frey’s case, his book would have made a decent novel, but presenting it as truth is really indefensible, especially because it is a work of political propaganda that panders to the DEA line on drug use.

No one seems to get the basic issue, which is that he lied in the direction of drug war propaganda. Everything he made up emphasized his badness and degeneracy, thereby showing that drugs are bad. This made it ok for him to (supposedly) be given restorative dental surgery without an anesthetic and otherwise kicked around. We’re all complaining about Bush’s assaults on the Constitution, but drug users have been deprived of basic Constitutional protections for a long time. Works like “A Million Little Pieces” that demonize the drug user make these abuses of human freedom possible. That is a long story that I am not going to go into here. Suffice it to say that just about everything you know about drug use is wrong, but don’t expect to find the refutations on the best seller list.

I have always been a fan of Nan Talese and have often reviewed her books with great affection, but in this case I think that she should really stop excusing herself and pay attention to what her husband has to say about this issue.

If you’ve read the book, perhaps the worst lies come at the end.  Throughout, Frey trashes Alcoholics Anonymous, saying its adherents have a “glazed look” in their eyes and have just substituted addiction to god for their drug addiction.  At the end, he tells us how these people (apart from his friends) relapsed and died in horrible ways.  At the time I read it I wondered how he would possibly have this information.  Now I know.  I hope no reader struggling with addiction is convinced that AA never works and only Frey’s tough guy approach holds out any hope.  (Yes, I’m in AA and have been sober for twelve years, so I’m not objective….but the book really is such bullshit.)

Great article!  The first one I’ve read that I think represents the thought pattern of the few independant minds still out there.  I also found it funny that Frey’s mother obviously never got help for being an enabler.  Her presence only served to cusion the impact caused from Mr. Frey’s lack of integrety.

James Frey made a lot of money.  In this society, money trumps integrity, it trumps veracity, it trumps honesty and it trumps decency.  That Frey has become a celebrity should come as no surprise.  Oprah, too, is a celebrity.  She also has a lot of money.