James Frey is a lying bitch.

[Grapes]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...amesfrey1.html

Discuss.

Worth reading all six pages if you have the time. I won't ruin it for you.. suffice to say, I hope you hadn't done what Oprah and apparently millions of her minons had done, and made James Frey's wonderous soul and strength of character your life's inspiration.

[Silverwinged]

holy hera.
fuckin guy.
*shakes head*

[mojo]

im too lazy to read all of that, but if the book is as good a read as it sounds like it is, i don't really give a damn.

fiction for me baybee

[Technix]

I had heard so much about this book.

And its alleged to be mostly fiction. Interesting read.

[Grapes]

im too lazy to read all of that, but if the book is as good a read as it sounds like it is, i don't really give a damn.

Oh, it is a good read. Absolutely. But the idea is that the book is his memoirs, and he claims that the evens contained within are true. And a large part of the appeal of reading A Million Little Pieces comes from the sheer shock value of the events, and the sheer amazement that the author/narrator is able to overcome his checkered past.

If he was just making it all up.. well.... what am I supposed to find shocking? I guess his capacity for fabricating extravagent, bald-faced lies is pretty surprising.

You know, it's funny, there were a couple of moments in the book where a voice in the back of my head was going "Yea... I don't know if I can really believe this..." but the moment when that voice most came to the forefront of my consciousness was during the scene (**** SPOILER ALERT ****) when the people at the rehab clinic are treated to a heavyweight fight. Frey describes some epic battle between a huge heavyweight fighter and a smaller (but obviously still big) combatant (He never mentions either of their names)... and I'm thinking as I'm reading a description of this toe-to-toe, all-out war.... "I don't know what fucking fight he's talking about, because I can't recall a match like this during the time period he must be talking about... I guess a smaller heavyweight could be Mike Tyson, but none of his fights were ever back and forth like this... who the hell was in this epic fight, and where can I watch a replay???"

Now I know not to bother looking. Lollerskatez!

[Grapes]

Btw mojo, if you hadn't been to lazy to read all that you would've seen that he's coming out with a fictional novel as his next effort. Well.. one might say, he's coming out with a 3rd fictional novel, but this time he's admitting it's fiction :D

[fable]

i havent read the book, but after hearing numerous accounts from my friends, and forcefull suggestions that i should read it asap (yes because us addicts/alcoholics like to keep tabs on all the latest "tell all" stories[drowing in sarcasm]) i realized it sounded just like a book i read almost a year ago, called "cool, hip and sober"

Nonetheless, i could give two shits about if its fake or not. I get my dose of reality, as soon as i wake up, and if i want to be with fellow people in the struggle, im at a meeting.

[mojo]

Originally Posted by Grapes

Btw mojo, if you hadn't been to lazy to read all that you would've seen that he's coming out with a fictional novel as his next effort. Well.. one might say, he's coming out with a 3rd fictional novel, but this time he's admitting it's fiction :D

we don't all have nothing but time there Grapey mcgraperson:P

go to the beach or something! pick up some tramps on Manly!

[sidekick]

well i just finished reading this book and i think it's one of the best books i have read in the last fives years. i thought it was creative and raw and original and powerful.

i'm skeptical of believing that website as a news source, but would be only slightly dissapointed to find out that he fabricated some of what was in the book.

yes, part of it's appeal is that it supposedly 'happened'...but man, even if it didn't all happen...this guy is a fucking great writer. who cares? i got so emotional at many parts in the book...and after thinking that maybe some of it wasn't true...i really don't care. it pulled at my heart anyway.

is this supposed to convince us that the book is less good because some of it may be made up?

stop whining and enjoy a good book dammit.

[Grapes]

well i just finished reading this book and i think it's one of the best books i have read in the last fives years. i thought it was creative and raw and original and powerful.

Oh I agree!... still an amazing read, and I particularly agree with you about the "creative" part. If anything, in light of what TSG has uncovered, it's even more creative than I thought.

There's a couple of reasons I thought this report was worth sharing, as opposed to "whining".

One is that it's flat out fascinating: If you read the report and watch them dismantle, with research and proof, pretty much every part of the book that is researchable and proveable, it starts to become fairly obvious that you can't trust a word of what Frey says in A Million Little Pieces. Leaving aside, for a moment, whether or not that should affect your enjoyment of the book, I found the sheer capacity of Frey for exaggeration to be a story in itself! As The Smoking Gun puts it, regarding Frey's supposed incident where he hits a cop with his car and then proceeds to raise hell while being swarmed Grand Theft Auto style,:

To review:

There was no patrolman struck with a car.

There was no urgent call for backup.

There was no rebuffed request to exit the car.

There was no "You want me out, then get me out."

There was no "fucking Pigs" taunt.

There were no swings at cops.

There was no billy club beatdown.

There was no kicking and screaming.

There was no mayhem.

There was no attempted riot inciting.

There were no 30 witnesses.

There was no .29 blood alcohol test.

There was no crack.

"Creative" doesn't begin to describe an effort like that!

The other reason I felt like throwing up this link is that, if I'm being honest, yeah it does bother me a bit that an author gave us a collection of supposedly factual, ultra personal "memoirs" and, at the very least, large swaths of them turn out to be nonsense. I guess the instance where this is probably the most reprehensible would be when he appropriates what was a real event, namely the death of a teen girl in a train accident, and inserts himself in it as being almost as much a victim as she was, because supposedly the whole town turned on him afterwards and blamed him for the accident. In real life, or "IRL" as they say in the intraweb, no-one could really recall much about him... there's a certain kind of appropriation going on here which I find pretty crass. To my mind, a lot of the book has to do with sympathizing, if not empathizing, with Frey and his struggles, and that part of the appeal (however large or small a fraction it might be) is pretty much lost to me.

Like I said before, even during my initial read through of A Million Little Pieces I had a feeling that some of it was fiction... just not quite this much. I think the report is worth reading (and entirely credible, btw) and that's why I put it out there... feel free to turn a blind eye if you want.

[Tayfoon]

delusional tool