A Million Little Happy Readers... So Who Cares? (My Friend Leonard)

Okay, so I'm a little behind on the times. The James Frey "Million Little Lies" controversy has been raging for months now. But I live in the UK (where US books are often released later) so I've only recently finished My Friend Leonard. Both A Million Little Pieces and its sequel My Friend Leonard follow the turbulent life and rehabilitation of alcoholic and addict James Frey.

I read A Million Little Pieces on a long Amtrak journey when I was in the US last year, and it certainly made a boring train ride go faster. It is marketed as a memoir and reads like one--depicting events and situations from Frey's life. It is raw, real and incredibly hard to put down. Ah! There's the rub...

According to The Smoking Gun http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0104061jamesfrey1.html much of the book is fictionalised and sensationalised. Now this probably wouldn't have been an issue EXCEPT the book was featured in Oprah's Book Club, and the Queen of TV was so moved by the book that she had Frey on the show as a guest. During this one-hour slot, Frey expressed that nothing in the book was exaggerated or made up. Unfortunately for the author, The Smoking Gun did its research and found out that wasn't strictly true.

No one messes with Oprah, goddammit.

Since the publication of The Smoking Gun's revelations, Oprah has had Frey back on the show and he has admitted that the same "demons"that made him use drugs and alcohol also made him fabricate and embellish parts of his book. In response to The Smoking Gun's research, Fry said they "did a good job."

Things are marketed as something they're not every single day (food commercials many times have nothing to do with food; brand lifestyles are sold as opposed to products themselves) and I can't see how a book should be much different. I think The Smoking Gun's revelations are certainly interesting and amusing, and I pity Frey for being caught in these lies, but finding out that much of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard is untrue is unsurprising to me. I never expected the "memoirs" to be completely true. The first book discusses incidents in far too clear of detail for a once drugged-up junkie to remember. I thought Frey's creative licence was clear from the first page.

I think James Frey has an interesting writing style that proved especially good in this particular subject matter. Of the two books, I found My Friend Leonard to be more touching and fulfilling, but A Million Little Pieces certainly has its heart in the right place and has apparently helped a lot of people with addiction problems.

Both books have proven immensely successful and Frey is still highly respected by his fan base, so who cares if every detail of his books aren't true? I'll be interested to see the film (yes, Frey has written a screenplay of AMLP) when it comes out, and I'll be on the look-out to see what Frey writes next.

I bet Oprah will be too.