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Alan Miller
posted 21 February 2006

Over Christmas one of the books on my reading list was James Frey's (pronounced Fry) A Million Little Pieces. While I was cautious of another 'confessional novel', I was curious that Oprah Winfrey had put it on her famous Book Club list, alongside such giants as Faulkner and Tolstoy.

Sure enough, the opening page had me gripped, with the telegram-style matter of fact description of a twenty three year old waking up bleeding, snot, puke and vomit-ridden and without his front teeth. Like the start of a good film, I was captivated and wanted to find out what this was all about. As the story unfolds, the style becomes somewhat repetitive and the relationships and situations are contrived and a little predictable, yet we go along with some of this because we are under the impression that Frey is, in the spirit of our times, sharing his pain and experience in order that we may understand and connect with him.

In 1979, when Christopher Lasch wrote The Culture of Narcissism, he pointed out how many authors were increasingly combining personal anecdotes with broader perspectives, some of which penetrated deeper than supposedly impartial accounts though at its worst degenerated in to self-display. This trend of course we have seen mushroom in to a huge money-spinning enterprise with titles on everything from alcoholism to anorexia. What all of these books promise is the authenticity of the writer who has experienced the depths of despair and darkness of the human condition and can share some kind of insight through having been there. Unfortunately, more often than not, they end up being self-indulgent and banal. However, they fit in with the therapeutic mores of our times, according to which people are encouraged to see themselves as victims of one kind of 'disease' or another, making it impossible assert self-control without some sort of 'programme' (usually of the 12-step variety).

This is where perhaps Frey seemed to gain a few points, as he supposedly rejected the 12-step approach to drug and alcohol addiction, continuing with the mantra 'I am a drug addict, I am an alcoholic, I am a criminal'. He does though decide to lock on to the mystical I Ching to give him some sense of order in the world. He tells us that he walks in to a bar and orders a huge dose of hard liquor and then faces it down, declaring he is done with it forever.

What is so surprising is the amount of attention and controversy that has been generated since it has come to light that Frey is believed to have fabricated much of what he wrote. Frey and his publisher, Doubleday, have sold over 3.5 million copies of the book, which has been consistently around the top of the New York Times booklist for several weeks, largely thanks to being on Oprah's book club list and being on her show. However, The Smoking Gun, a website dedicated to finding out information relating to legal issues, court cases, FBI and police documents and such like using the Freedom of Information requests, ran a piece in early January citing numerous inconsistencies between Frey's apparent 'non fictional' account and the reality revealed by police records and other witnesses.

On January 11, James Frey was interviewed on Larry King Live and he maintained generally his position (while conceding a little fabrication had occurred) and Oprah rang in the show to say that she was still supportive of him and that his message of salvation was an inspiration. Maureen Dowd ran a piece in her column at The New York Times outraged that Oprah indulged Frey and suggesting that society's bar for calling a spade a spade, or in this case a liar a liar, had been sadly reduced further.

It seemed as though Frey was going to get past any further scrutiny - and continue with his writing projects - with a film script written and being co-produced by Brad Pitt, and other works of fiction in the pipeline. However, Frey and his publishers hadn't counted on the one golden premise of our therapeutic times, which is that regardless of anything else, we want to know the pain, the dirt, the humiliation, all really happened. How else can we have a convincing morality tale for our times? If it is fiction, then anyone could have made it up and it would not be so 'compelling'. When we get to see our fellow humans scratching around in the detritus of existence, it is presented as a genuine unifier of general human folly.

The fact that Frey was turned down by over a dozen publishers previously when he had presented his book as fiction, should perhaps of raised some concerns in the industry. However, it is a little rich when the expectation and demand in publishing increasingly is for nastier, sadder, more despicable sides of human life to be reeled off, whether it be Gonzo-style, celebrity admissions or in the manner of chick-lit, for publishers to complain when writers try it on.

Finally, Frey was interviewed again on Oprah, in an emotional confrontation that made the front page of New York Times the next day, with a piece by Edward Wyatt documenting the entire story. Winfrey took the opportunity to change course, perhaps heeding some of the advice of Dowd and others, and apologised to her audience before turning to Frey. Much in the style of the confessional high priestess, she, between tears and anger, confronted Frey with her own disbelief at his lying. For his part, Frey said he 'made a mistake' and that he had developed a tough guy stance as 'a coping mechanism' to deal with his addictions. He suggested he should have been more introspective. Oh please, more therapeutic language in an attempt to cover up the act - on the couch.

While the audience oohed and aahed the Times ran an editorial piece applauding Oprah and pointing out that we have been waiting for public officials to do the same thing, admit openly they had made mistakes. It then accused Ms Talese, who heads up Doubleday (part of Random House) of speaking in soft psychology because she talked about the effect the book had on her and how true it seemed, but was unwilling to stand behind the accuracy of a factual manuscript. It is not just Ms Talese, or the publishing industry that suffers from this though.

Increasingly we see the journalism of attachment and emotionalism encroaching on the integrity of journalistic standards. In an age where the most important message is 'we all suffer', perhaps this is where we should start to take aim - and challenge the negative and increasingly pervasive view that humans are generally a messed up bunch. Then, we could start to view the denigration of ourselves for entertainment as what it is; an aberration of human culture and not worthy of its name.

Alan Miller is director of the NY Salon.