"What is relevant is that he was a drug addict … and stepped out of that history to be the man he is today and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves"
That’s what Oprah Winfrey said in response to the recent allegations against James Frey.
The guy wrote a memoir which Oprah hyped on her show a few months ago. Unfortunately, according to The Smoking Gun, the book is more fiction than fact.
I knew there was a reason I couldn’t get all "fawny" about Oprah and I’ve always been amazed at the way people gush over her.
What’s her secret? What’s she got that makes people "worship" her?
Well, it ain’t integrity. I know that’s sounds nasty and I don’t mean to be.
But how can she say to millions of fans and "fawners" that the book she’s recommending as a riveting account of personal struggle and survival is still worth reading when that same book turns out NOT to be true but an utter fabrication?
I caught the Larry King show where Oprah called in and made the above statement. King was interviewing Frey and his mother. Anyone able to distinguish fact from fiction could tell that Frey and his mother were doing all they could to promote fiction over fact. They could NOT manage to say that allegations by the Smoking Gun were untrue. His mom also never made the statement I was looking for: that the book was "factual – according to her recollection". All she could get out was that "she stood by her son’s work" and that the book had "helped so many people".
So, the only conclusion I could come to is that the Smoking Gun got it right and Frey’s book, "A Million Little Pieces", along with it’s follow on book, "My Friend Leonard", are great stories, well written, mostly fiction, and therefor a worthless read.
Ok, maybe not entirely worthless… but, it’s not just the story that gives the book it’s power of inspiration; it’s the knowledge that the story is true… that this guy really lived through this and survived… that no matter how bad things are for the reader, they were really bad for someone else and he came out on top. In such a case the person telling the story should be upheld as a role model and an inspiration for others.
Frey knew this. That’s why you don’t see anywhere on the book cover "based on a true story" which would let readers know that the book is a fictional account with some truth sprinkled in. That’s why, in promoting the book he continually maintained it was a factual account of what actually happened to him.
But, if it turns out Frey wasn’t in as bad a situation as he describes and if he’s now at best an obviously talented liar and a thief who may have kicked his addiction but hasn’t yet mastered personal integrity – how does he merit being held up as a model to be emulated?
The only thing Frey teaches us is that the old children’s story, the Emperors New Clothes, still aptly describes human behavior:
- the liars and the thieves are still out there
- the "fawners" are still willing to "see" something where nothing exists
- the Emperor (or in this case the Empress) is still butt-naked