James Frey in GQ
James Frey's A Million Little Pieces was a book club selection a while back. He's got a new book coming out June 16 called My Friend Leonard. In this month's GQ (the one with Brad Pitt on the cover) they published an excerpt from his new book. Anybody else catch it? I thought the story was really good. It was funny, scary, and had the usual James Frey pathetic moments in it too.
Sweet jesus. Cue more Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys or Kalifornia overacting fucknuttery.
well, as i and others have suspected all along, james frey was basically full of shit. one look at the dude will tell you he wasn’t anywhere near the bad-ass he depicted himself as.
extensive investigation by the smoking gun website exposes the litany of inaccuracies and falsities in his debut book, 'a million little pieces.' i doubt the book is purely fiction (though, interestingly, it was initially pitched as such, and rejected 17 times), though it’s clear that frey has taken some serious dramatic liberties, meanwhile claming at every turn that it was 100% true.
[url=http://www.thesmokinggun.com/jamesfrey/0104061jamesfrey1.html] here’s the six page analysis for anyone who cares[/url]
[QUOTE=Riddlegimp]Sweet jesus. Cue more Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys or Kalifornia overacting fucknuttery.[/QUOTE]
pitt is far too old to play frey, gimper. it'll be interesting to see who they pick to play the part of leonard. i always pictured him as an older, more bloated ray liotta.
oooo...i loved the lawyer letter where he calls TSG "snide". ha!!
[QUOTE=Balthazar]pitt is far too old to play frey, gimper. it'll be interesting to see who they pick to play the part of leonard. i always pictured him as and older, more bloated ray liotta.[/QUOTE]
a vince vaughn, perhaps?? nah, too bloated.
i got it! michael madsen.
ooooooh!! i like that!
although i'm afraid madsen may be too cold blooded and smarmy to play father figure.
so it's now front page on msn.com. BREAKING NEWS type of shit.
does anyone find it strange that someone took the time and effort to dig into frey's past like that? he must have REALLY pissed someone off along the way.
sweet larkey malorky! Moe!
what up, kid? did you see this "breaking news" stuff? you read AMLP, didn't you?
[QUOTE=moe.ron]what up, kid? did you see this "breaking news" stuff? you read AMLP, didn't you?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I liked it alot. I picked up the My Friend Leonard at a used book store last month. I need to flip through that soon after All The Beautiful Sinners, Glamorama, Mona Lisa Overdrive.
totally. six months worth of digging.
i still like the book, but i figured frey was full of shit reading it. the anesthesia-less dentist bit. it was an entertaining sequence, but i mean, really.
I believed every word of it and still do. I also believe that elvis was an alien from Kremlon and had a son that he named L. Ron Hubbard
well! in that case, i guess you really did enjoy the book!
i'm still really interested in who, exactly, frey pissed off to deserve this digging. and what he did, if he was just acting like a pompus ass.
that is a interesting thought though
I hope it's not true that Frey lied. I'd feel let down after reading that book.
well I read it for entertainment, so this doesn't bother me really that much.
I also think that [U]A Million Little Peices[/U] has one of the coolest covers I've ever seen.
Moe, it made the front page on AOL's welcoming screen too.
They were saying that Smoking Gun investigated it because Oprah picked it as her book of the month for her BC. He then when on to sell a shit load of copies (I know shit load isn't the accurate term, but I forgot how many exactly and it isn't on the news page anymore...)
I think they said he sold 3.5 million copies of the book. When my parents' 50+ year old friends are telling me what a great book it is and how much style Frey has (even though its on Oprah's Book Club), I figured it was probably not worth a look. I've already read Burrough's Junkie... Of course, this comes out the same day that JT Leroy is also being 'unmasked'. If you didn't see it, here is the [URL=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/10/LEROY.TMP]SF Chronicle update[/URL].
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"She broke my heart, so now I have to write about her forever." ~Michelle Tea
Frey's busy refuting these claims on his [URL=http://www.bigjimindustries.com/news.html]website[/URL], but the whole "let the haters hate" thing is pretty flimsy.
I liked the book. He's still a compelling writer, even if he is a self-aggrandizing fucknut.
anyone remember the member TastesLikeChicken? i swore for the longest time he was james frey 'cause he'd only pop in to yell at me for talking shit on frey... i'm actually waiting for him to post in this thread. TLC WHERE ARE YOU????
[QUOTE=moe.ron]does anyone find it strange that someone took the time and effort to dig into frey's past like that? he must have REALLY pissed someone off along the way.[/QUOTE]
Someone emailed the Smoking Gun website to suggest they add Frey's mugshot to their celebrity musgshots [url=http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/]page[/url]. Because there was none to be found even though Frey had supposedly spent 3 months in jail, they dug a little deeper and the rest kind of unraveled. It was pretty innocent, from what I've read.
i don't know about that. when frey's book was first published, he called out a few of the more hipper, trendier authors (who also happen to have much, much more published than frey) of our day, basically saying he's a better writer. perhaps TSG's investigation was just that simple, but i think someone had a bug in someone else's ear for a while.
anyway, more news: [url]http://movies.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=211848[/url] . link basically says frey will appear on larry king live.
[URL=http://us.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/01/11/arts.frey.reut/index.html]REFUNDS????[/URL]
I have a seriously hard time believing this.
Woah, that cover with the hand really freaks me out!
[url=http://www.exile.ru/2005-December-15/a_million_bottles_of_beer_on_the_wall.html]here's[/url] a story (written by some dude in december of last year) that maudnewton linked on her blog today that suggests frey may have directly lifted subject matter from a little know book called 'another day in paradise.'
[QUOTE=jase][URL=http://us.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/01/11/arts.frey.reut/index.html]REFUNDS????[/URL]
I have a seriously hard time believing this.[/QUOTE]
honestly, if you're asking for a refund on this book because it's not true, you've got other issues to deal with. james frey is not god, people!! even if that's what he wants you to believe!
You'd think after all these years a publisher would be smart enough to tell the author "We don't give a shit what you've been through, we're putting [I]BASED ON TRUE EVENTS [/I]on the jacket sleeve and copyright page."
[QUOTE=Balthazar][url=http://www.exile.ru/2005-December-15/a_million_bottles_of_beer_on_the_wall.html]here's[/url] a story (written by some dude in december of last year) that maudnewton linked on her blog today that suggests frey may have directly lifted subject matter from a little know book called 'another day in paradise.'[/QUOTE]
meh...that guy's got a little too much snark about him to make me take notice. the author of the article, that is.
[QUOTE=jase]You'd think after all these years a publisher would be smart enough to tell the author "We don't give a shit what you've been through, we're putting [I]BASED ON TRUE EVENTS [/I]on the jacket sleeve and copyright page."[/QUOTE]
you can bet your sweet ass they will now!!
if frey shows up with his mother on larry kind tonight, i think i may vomit.
i hope that's just a bad rumor.
what? his mother??? is she supposed to offer some kind of credibility??
maybe she can tell everyone that he really did coke at age 6 and was a crackhead at age 10 or whatever, then she can start crying...it'll all be good.
[QUOTE=moe.ron]honestly, if you're asking for a refund on this book because it's not true, you've got other issues to deal with. james frey is not god, people!! even if that's what he wants you to believe![/QUOTE]
What issues? He's a liar. Asking for a refund is a great way to show one's disgust. What moved most people reading the book was the fact that it was a [I]true [/I]story of a difficult recovery. But how difficult was it?[I] His rich parents put him in rehab.[/I] The rest is made up!
issues of believing everything you read/see/hear, issues of naivety. on either end: because james frey said his story is real, because TSG said it's not. i'm not a fan of people who get all up in arms because someone else told them to.
Well, I'm currently being sued by the Louvre for scraping the face off the Mona Lisa to look for clues.
I'm now going to write an angry letter to Dan Brown demanding that he pay my legal fees. That fucker DUPED ME!
[QUOTE=Riddlegimp]Well, I'm currently being sued by the Louvre for scraping the face off the Mona Lisa to look for clues.
I'm now going to write an angry letter to Dan Brown demanding that he pay my legal fees. That fucker DUPED ME![/QUOTE]
ha!!
it'll only get worse when the movie comes out starring tom hanks... tom wouldn't lie to us!
[QUOTE=moe.ron]issues of believing everything you read/see/hear, issues of naivety. on either end: because james frey said his story is real, because TSG said it's not. i'm not a fan of people who get all up in arms because someone else told them to.[/QUOTE]
Frey said his story is real. TSG revealed that it's not with plenty of facts to back it up. I can understand people getting up in arms about being manipulated and lied to and expressing that to his publishing company. They perpetuated the lie by not doing any fact checking. A made up life is perfectly fine to publish, it's done all the time, it's called fiction..
All art is a lie, even when it tells the truth.
Fiction writers usually need to go to great lengths to establish a sense of reality, where they must tirelessly work to establish the audience's suspension of disbelief whether it's through head authority, heart authority, or painstaking special effects. Frey took a shortcut and just plain lied. He got away with it breifly, sold millions of books. Now he's busted and now has no future in entertainment. That's fair punishment.
Refunds though? Come on. Did anyone get a refund for their Vanilla Ice CDs? Did you feel cheated for behaving good when you found out Santa Claus was a lie? Just take it to a used book store if you're that pissed off. It's entertainment, which is luxury. This isn't being sold poisoned food or fabricating military intelligence.
All art is a lie. You pay for someone to lie to you. If some universal truth shines through the details, then you got lucky. In Frey's case, the lie was bumped up to a different stage of the game, like Andy Kaufman pranking his audience. But since it wasn't done in jest or for fun, his career is over. People who buy books because Oprah recommends them don't get my pity.
On another note, does anyone picture Frey like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" signing checks for the refunds on his glasses invention?
so it really is all random house's fault? nevermind the fact that he, personally, maintains that the story is true? there's got to be a better method of protest than demanding a refund from a gabillion dollar corporation who really doesn't give a fuck...
The best method of protest is to NOT buy "My Friend Leonard".
But you know, as I sit here playing with my sore tooth and repeatedly punching my own arm, I think I might just order that sucker right now on Amazon....
[QUOTE=moe.ron]so it really is all random house's fault? nevermind the fact that he, personally, maintains that the story is true? there's got to be a better method of protest than demanding a refund from a gabillion dollar corporation who really doesn't give a fuck...[/QUOTE]
Well they gave a fuck enough to issue a statement. 
Sure, they should be held responsible. They published a work of fiction as non fiction.
The fact that he personally maintains the story is true means very little if you read the 6 pages of the TSG article.
[QUOTE=jase]All art is a lie, even when it tells the truth.
Fiction writers usually need to go to great lengths to establish a sense of reality, where they must tirelessly work to establish the audience's suspension of disbelief whether it's through head authority, heart authority, or painstaking special effects. Frey took a shortcut and just plain lied. He got away with it breifly, sold millions of books. Now he's busted and now has no future in entertainment. That's fair punishment.
Refunds though? Come on. Did anyone get a refund for their Vanilla Ice CDs? Did you feel cheated for behaving good when you found out Santa Claus was a lie? Just take it to a used book store if you're that pissed off. It's entertainment, which is luxury. This isn't being sold poisoned food or fabricating military intelligence.
All art is a lie. You pay for someone to lie to you. If some universal truth shines through the details, then you got lucky. In Frey's case, the lie was bumped up to a different stage of the game, like Andy Kaufman pranking his audience. But since it wasn't done in jest or for fun, his career is over. People who buy books because Oprah recommends them don't get my pity.
On another note, does anyone picture Frey like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" signing checks for the refunds on his glasses invention?[/QUOTE]
It was not sold as entertainment though. It was sold as a heartbreaking memoir of addiction and recovery. I don't actually Random House should issue refunds, just that it's great that people are tying up their phone lines.
[QUOTE=mirka]Sure, they should be held responsible. They published a work of fiction as non fiction.[/QUOTE]
I think that in the minds of the general public, they will hold Frey and not the publisher responsible. Which is why I am shocked to hear of the refunds. I can't imagine anyone would say "I'm not buying that book, it's published by RANDOM HOUSE!!!" Of course, people do make distinctions by publisher, particularly biased against self-publishers, but I hardly imagine any discrimination coming down against such a large house name when the author on the cover will likely be the real deciding factor.
Actually, I just had a quick look at the back of my copy. One of the quotes says:
"...easily the most remarkable non-fiction book about drugs and drug taking since Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...."
I'm thinking: If [I]Fear and Loathing[/I]...can be classed as non-fiction then god knows how much you have to "embellish" before something becomes fiction.
do you think any of this "backlash" means much of anything to random house? all the returns they get from AMLP is going to amount to about a drop in a bucket. of course they'll issue a statement, but ultimately do you think anyone's losing much sleep over there? let me ask you one more thing: do you think the average reader, i.e. that person who's only ever heard of this book because of its new found popularity thanks to harpo industries, is going to read ANY let alone ALL of TSG's investigation?
[QUOTE=mirka]It was not sold as entertainment though. It was sold as a heartbreaking memoir of addiction and recovery.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but how many athletes, musicians, and other public figures do the same thing? The only reason people are so caught off guard is that unlike a celebrity, they have no pre-formed opinion about the guy, so they actually read it with an open mind. They got lied to just the same, just like an athlete denying steriod use or a model denying eating disorders or any other such thing.
MEMOIR is the key term - it's what someone chooses to remember. If you don't believe people can lie to themselves, then you've just lied to yourself.
who watched larry king?
why can't a heartbreaking memoir of addiction and recovery be entertainment?
Funny you mention James Frey and Brad Pitt in this post, because Mark Romanek is going to direct the movie adaptation of A Million Little Pieces, with Brad Pitt producing it, from what I read.
I admit I haven't read the book, so I have no idea if this will be good or bad.
[URL=http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22051]AICN linkage.[/URL]