I'm chiming in late about James Frey and A Million Little Pieces - the memoir that wasn't. But I have been reading about it, and thinking about it.And like many others, I was disappointed when Oprah, who had invited Frey on her show and helped catapault him to literary stardom, defended the author.
But this morning Oprah took Frey to task for presenting fiction as truth--and doled out blame to his editor, Nan Talese.
From PW Daily:
Saying she felt "duped" by Frey, Winfrey said she had allowed her feelings about the book and Frey's strong relationship with her producers to cloud her judgement about the author when she called in to defend him on the Larry King Show earlier this month. "I made a mistake and left the impression that the truth does not matter, and I am deeply sorry about that," Winfrey said.
Frey acknowledged that the Smoking Gun story was "pretty accurate" and admitted that he only spent a few hours in jail, not months or weeks, and that he had changed substantial facts about some characters....
And Oprah didn't buy the editor's defense: that during the entire publication process, there had been no reason to doubt the authenticity of Frey's memoir.
Winfrey told of how a Hazeldon counselor came forward to challenge aspects of the story eight days after Winfrey announced in the fall that she was choosing Pieces for her club. Winfrey said she had then asked Doubleday if "stood behind James's book as a work of nonfiction at the time, and they said absolutely." Winfrey also questioned how a publisher could send out a press release touting the book as a "brutally honest" look at addtion, when they "haven't checked it to be sure." To which Talese responded "its very sad for you. It's very sad for us."
Sad for everyone.
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