I thought about putting on my size 10 wellies for this one.

Well, isn't this so called 'memoir' not just littered with bullshit?

Not, I suppose, that it really mattered. As whether a memoir, fictional memoir, or novel, it just wasn't very good. The writing isn't anything special for one thing, and it's certainly in need of a good editor. The only people I felt any emotion and pity for in the end was James's anguished parents—who he at least acknowledges at the back of the book with a big 'thank you' for their loving support.

But hey, if like your books to be repetitive, then you've come to the right place; especially when it comes to things like this -

'I get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. I shower and shave and I brush my teeth. I get dressed and I leave the room. I get a cup of coffee and I sit down at a table and I drink the coffee'

I mean, come on!, what else can one do with a cup a coffee besides drink it?

Dance with it? Play noughts and crosses with it ? Ask it for a light?

I know rehab is all about routine, and taking small steps at a time, and it's anything but a walk in the park, but I just found it very very difficult to get behind this guy and hope it all worked out for him. What is there to believe and what not to believe? It really feels like a kick in the guts to all those out there going through hell in rehab. Then there are the supposed crimes he was wanted for in three different states, and those he met and mixed with. Why not just be sincerely honest about it son?

Even when he found love in the form of another crack addict called Lily I struggled to get on board.

(Normally I love the whole idea of finding love in the most unexpected of places)

There are two writers in Brett Easton Ellis and Denis Johnson who I would have been far more interested in when it comes to writing about drug addiction.

The message that hard drugs basically fuck you up—period, resonated with me.

The writer absolutely did not.

Being a recovering drunk myself, I found Frey's book to be thoroughly annoying. People in addiction tend to be self-absorbed people and this is one of the things we're trying to learn not to be when we stop drinking/using. Frey portrays a character who stops using but doesn't really change. He becomes more annoying and self-absorbed with his cliched eastern religious study and trip to the dentist without pain med's which I found totally unbelievable and unhealthy.
The good thing about the book was his portrayal of life for a substance abuser. What I really got out of it was how highly self-absorbed drunks and drug addicts are even when we write crappy books about it.

So bad, it's eminently quotable. I fondly remember lines like, "I endured, I endured, I fucking endured" and "a bayonet, an eight-foot bayonet, a fucking eight-foot bayonet" both during his traumatic root canal (poor Jimmy), and "Like a child being burned alive, a child being burned alive, a child being fucking burned alive," Frey's way of describing a grown man's screaming at the top of his lungs. See the pattern here? Forgive me if I misquote him by leaving out ellipses. No, I didn't demand a refund on my copy: I borrowed the book from a friend. You could say this is stunning prose in that it feels like an eight-foot bayonet being rammed through you, but then I've never been bayoneted, so I wouldn't know.

addicts exaggerate the truth -- who knew???
first off, it's a great read with a unique style. frey makes a sort of rhythm with his sentence structure throughout the entire story, pulling and pushing the reader along at a pace that he (frey) determines, and that is an amazing accomplishment in itself. it is also a wonderful tool for bringing the reader into a world that he/she may have absolutely no idea about. i've been to rehab -- a few, actually, over the course of a year -- and it is very much like going on a roller coaster without a seat belt when you are least prepared physically/mentally for even the slow car ride there.
secondly, it would blow a lot of minds to do some research on how ineffective AA really is. for many, AA will actually make matters worse. i'm not anti-12-step programs, ((if it works, great!)) but there are a lot of other options that people are not made aware of that could save a life or two.
third, with regards to the climactic scene where frey confronts the demon-whiskey, whether it actually happened or not is pretty irrelevant; he paints a great picture of how a person feels once he/she is on the other side of the problem/disorder/disease/whatever. looking at a manifestation of the very thing that caused so much damage and pain... the frustration of realizing that it could do it again if one were to let down one's guard for even a second... even the somewhat sick and egotistical pleasure one gets from taunting the old bully that used to beat you up daily and take your lunch money... powerful and poignant.
what amazes me more than anything, believe it or not, is frey's honesty. he doesn't do what so many addiction memoirs do, which is romanticise a very self-degrading affliction. he gives it enough of a "hook" here and there to keep the reader's attention, and he drifts in and out of the plot's reality and his subconscious, ((which is also very true to the actual experience,)) but ultimately, he gives a very genuine account of something that (thank God) most people will never have to go through.
and when it comes to the scene at the dentist, well, it wouldn't shock me one way or the other concerning his "truthiness." what i will say is that i can't out right dismiss the possibility when it comes to a man who has the courage to put such a personal and difficult experience out there for the entire world. you can question the man's honesty, but not the size of his b*lls.

I did go into this book after the whole scandel business went down, and I went in not caring if it wasn't quite as factual as some may thinkg. Going in knowing this, I had a fairly open mind thinking of it more as a "based on a true story" kind of memoir (hey if I was writing about rehab I would probably change a few things too). However, even going in with this mind set I was SO irritated that this piece of crap had ever been sold as non-fiction. And no, it wasn't the fact that most of the book was clearly made up, but a number of other things.
First off, there were far too many fancy "only in the fiction world" events. If a crack head runs away from rehab, the guy that doesn't like him isn't going to come and help him on his mission. If a crackhead breaks the number one rule of the rehab centre they aren't going to give him a second chance just because he is so incredible.
Now, that being said, the second thing that irked me was how Frey tried to make himself into a hero. At no point in this book do I congratulate Frey for overcoming his addictions. I just don't care because I don't know what's true and what isn't. Frey explains to us over and over and over again how he is apparently the only person who has ever walked on the planet that can overcome addiction without the twelve steps. All of his support says in this book, "It won't work James, no one has ever stopped being an addict without the twelve steps." Well, James the miracle can! He can stop this just with the power of his mind. He is also strong enough to go into a crackhouse while in rehab and not do any crack and as he's leaving rehab he can sit infront of a huge class of whiskey and not drink it. Well! Good job James! You are the most incredible person on earth (that's what he wants us to say isn't it?)
Third, I hate the bit at the end of the book that "explains" what happens to all of the other characters. You expect every single event. It's like the "You get what's coming" ending. It was lame.
Finally, I hate hate hate this Writing style. Little picky things, I know, but I found it made this book very hard to read. Repeats of everything. Random words capitalized in the middle of a sentence. It irritated me to no end, in fact I could barely finish this book.
I want to forget forget forget this book.

I really wish I'd gotten my shit together to review this before all of the news about how much of it might be fiction started swirling around. But since I didn't, I feel some responsibility to talk about that, as well as about the book itself. Oh well.

The drama, in case you live under a rock, is that the truth of a number of the claims Frey makes in this book, a memoir, is being contested. You can take a look at this article if you'd like more information. My thoughts are that Frey probably did exaggerate or simply make up some of the things he writes in A Million Little Pieces. Mostly, though, I don't care. My not caring is twofold. First, this is a great book, and it would be a great book if it were fiction, so why should it matter how much of it actually happened? Secondly, I think it's naive to expect a memoir to be 100% factual (if 100% factual even exists). People write with an agenda, people even remember with an agenda, and that's always going to come across, to some extent. That being said, if it's true that Frey exaggerated or invented a lot of what is in this book, then a disclaimer to that effect should have been printed at the front of the book. Tim O'Brien, one of my favorite writers of all time, wrote several partially-factual/partially-fiction works dealing with Vietnam. His response to critics of his not being 100% accurate was that he was writing the truth about what being there felt like, about what being there was, and sometimes the actual facts fit into that and sometimes they don't. I can accept that, and I even admire the perspective. But it's not fair to the reader not to lay it out at the beginning if that is what you are doing. O'Brien does lay it out, and Frey probably should have.

That all being said, I thought this was a very high quality book. The plot is, in many ways, predictable. Frey is a young, well-off, white alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal. The book is the story of his six-week "last chance" rehab, during which time he comes off his addictions and begins his path of sobriety. Nothing revolutionary there. However, Frey's writing is top notch, which makes the story interesting to read, and his take on addiction and recovery is much less that you find in most people who write about it and much more like that I've found in the real life addicts I know. Frey has little respect for AA or 12 stepping in general, and he insists throughout the book on taking responsibility for his own actions and for his addictions. He even finds fault with the untouchable tenant that addiction is a disease. To me, at least, these things are interesting. And whether Frey the human being ever really held them or to what extent matters very little to me. What I'm interested in is what Frey the writer has to say about them.

I like this book because it was interesting to read, it didn't remind me of every other addiction book I've ever read, and it made me think. None of those things require a single word of it to have been true. So I recommend you read it. However, if there is a sharp and important delineation in your mind between fiction and memoir, you'd probably better read this one as fiction.

What a (million little) piece(s) of crap! By the time I finished this book I was craving a few stiff drinks, desperately tearing up the house looking for a syringe and spoon. If I had only thrown this one in the Goodwill bin sooner! I have no clue why anyone would think this was worthwhile reading material. I found it to be vapid, self-aggrandizing bullshit from start to finish.

I read this book before the whole Oprah controversy/confrontation, so that really had no impact upon my lowly opinion. This book was so badly written and sophomoric, I never had an inkling of empathy for any of the characters, particularly the author himself. So why am I wasting my time writing this review? Just in hopes that you will decide not to read this shite! Thank you for just saying no to "A Million Little Pieces" - you would have a much better time reading the operating manual for your toaster oven while smoking a rock.

I read "A Million Little Pieces" before the entire scandal broke out surrounding the truthfulness of the "memoir". Even before obtaining the knowledge that the book was not 100% truthful, I found it to be an overdramatized and unrealistic account of what real life drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs are like. In many scenes in the book I felt as though Frey was self aggrandizing and in some parts even glorifying the experience of being a drug addict. He portrayed drug addicts as rough and rugged, people that have been around the block more than once. Although there is definitely some truth to this, the other side of it is that Rehab is an incredibly sad place to visit. It is filled with lost souls who due to their brain chemistry, life experiences and poor luck have no other choice or options but to admit themselves (People rarely volunteer rehab, it usually takes a severe "rock bottom" to get them there.) I feel as though Frey's book would have been a lot more powerful had he excluded the sensationalism that seemed to flood the book, much of this represented in his wriitng style (one word sentences for dramatic effect.)
After the scandal was revealed and Frey's book was found to be less than non-fiction, my immediate reaction was sadness. I view this to mean that Frey has truly not recovered from his addiction, as step four in the 12 -step- program for recovering addicts is to have "made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." This book is a reflection that Frey obviously still has some work to do. (Not that all of us don't..we just didn't write a book.) To end on a positive note, I will say that "A Million Little Pieces" did give some people a push to seek treatment for their addictions and anything that is able to motivate someone is valuable, no matter the reason behind it.

New thoughts: I have been alerted by another good-reader that Frey refused to follow the 12 steps while he was in rehab (I remember this now..it has been a while since I read the book.) If the memoir was a true story, I would send an emphatic bravo over to Frey and encourage him to design his own program.. However this is not the case and I can only view this as Frey's false promise to other addicts that something other than A.A and the 12 step program will "cure" them of their demons. Sadly, thus far, for the majority of people, the 12 step program is the only successful way to long term recovery and Frey's invalidation of this process does nothing but direct people away from this track.

A Million Little Pieces, James Frey
A Million Little Pieces, tells the story of a 23-year-old alcoholic and abuser of other drugs and how he copes with rehabilitation in a twelve steps-oriented treatment center. While initially promoted as a memoir, it was later discovered that many of the events described in the book never happened. The book follows Frey through the painful experiences that lead up to his eventual release from the center, including his participation in the clinic's family program with his parents, despite his strong desire not to. Throughout the novel, Frey speaks of the "Fury" he is fighting, which he sees as the cause of his desire to drink alcohol and use other drugs. The "Fury" could be seen as the antagonist of the novel, because he believes that he will not be able to recover until he learns to ignore it or "kill it". Frey meets many interesting people in the clinic, with whom he forms relationships and who play an important role in his life both during and after his time in the clinic.

عنوانها: ه‍زاران‌ ه‍زار ذره‌؛ ی‍ک‌ م‍ی‍ل‍ی‍ون‌ ت‍ک‍ه‌ ک‍وچ‍ک‌؛ یک میلیون ذره کوچک؛ رقص خود خواسته با شیطان؛ نویسنده: ج‍ی‍م‍ز ف‍ری‌ (فرای)؛ ناریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیستم ماه اکتبر سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: ه‍زاران‌ ه‍زار ذره‌؛ نویسنده: ج‍ی‍م‍ز ف‍ری‌؛ م‍ت‍رج‍م‌: س‍ه‍ی‍ل‌ س‍م‍ی‌؛ ت‍ه‍ران‌ : ع‍ل‍م‌ ، 1385؛ در 667 ص؛ شابک: 9644056779؛ موضوع: م‍ع‍ت‍ادان‌ - ای‍الات‌ م‍ت‍ح‍ده‌ - م‍ی‍ن‍ه‌س‍وت‍ا - س‍رگ‍ذش‍ت‍ن‍ام‍ه‌ - سده 21 م
عنوان: ی‍ک‌ م‍ی‍ل‍ی‍ون‌ ت‍ک‍ه‌ ک‍وچ‍ک‌؛ نویسنده: ج‍ی‍م‍ز ف‍رای‌؛ ب‍رگ‍ردان‌: ص‍دی‍ق‍ه‌ اب‍راه‍ی‍م‍ی‌ (ف‍خ‍ار)؛ تهران، البرز، 1385؛ در 694 ص؛ شابک: ایکس - 964442509؛
عنوان: یک میلیون ذره کوچک؛ نویسنده: ج‍ی‍م‍ز ف‍رای‌؛ ب‍رگ‍ردان‌: طناز شیرزاد؛ تهران: سالی، 1386؛ در 714 ص؛ شابک: 9789647191418؛
عنوان: رقص خود خواسته با شیطان؛ نویسنده: جیمز فری؛ مترجم: حسینعلی مقیمی؛ تهران: دایره، ‏‫1387؛ در 571 ص؛ شابک: 9789646839878؛‬

داستان زندگی معتادی بیست و سه ساله‌ است، که ده سال به الکل، و سه سال به مواد مخدر، اعتیاد دارد. هدف نویسنده از نگارش کتاب نشان دادن اراده‌ ی شگفت‌ آور انسان است. ماجرای کتاب در هواپیما آغاز می‌شود. صدای موتور هواپیما «جیمز فری» را گیج می‌کند. او نمی‌داند عازم کجاست. حتی دو هفته‌ ی گذشته را به یاد نمی‌آورد. گویی دچار فراموشی شده است. پس از فرود هواپیما، به یک مرکز بازپروری برده می‌شود، به او می‌گویند: «اعتیادت را ترک کن یا قبل از رسیدن به سن بیست و چهارسالگی خواهی مرد». یادمانهای شش هفته اقامت در مرکز بازپروری، هسته‌ ی اصلی داستان را تشکیل می‌هد. و ...؛
روزنامه فرانسوی لیبراسیون گفتگویی را با نویسنده انجام داده است

نخستین رمان شما با عنوان «هزاران هزار قطعه» تحت عنوان یک رمان بیوگرافی و خاطرات منتشر شد اما پس از انتشار مشخص شد که خیلی از رویدادهای آن در زندگی واقعی رخ نداده و ساختگی بوده که همین هم جنجال بسیاری ایجاد کرد و اتهاماتی نیز بر شما وارد شد. تاثیر این اتفاق‌ها روی شما چه بود؟
من در بیست سالگی دلم می‌خواست پرجنجال‌ترین نویسنده معاصر شوم و این اتفاق هم افتاد. افسوس آن‌چه را که در گذشته انجام داده‌ ام نمی‌خورم، و برایم مهم نیست. چیزی که مهم است کیفیت کتاب است و لذتی که خواننده از آن برده. اگر لازم باشد دوباره همان کار را خواهم کرد. در زندگی باید در رویاپردازی بی‌پروا و جسور بود و از هیچ چیز نهراسید. بیشتر افسوس چیزهایی را می‌خورم که در زندگی انجامشان نداده‌ام و شکست هم تاثیری روی من نمی‌گذارد.؛

برای نوشتن به چه چیزی نیاز دارید؟
در واقع خودم هم نمی‌دانم که چطور می‌نویسم. می‌نشینم به موسیقی پانک راک و یا راک گوش می‌دهدم و منتظر می‌شوم تا کلمات خودشان بیایند. کتاب ابتدا در قلب و در وجودم شکل می‌گیرد و وظیفه ی من به عنوان یک نویسنده این است که با توان هرچه بیشتر صورتی بیرونی به آن ببخشم.؛

از کجا به این یقین رسیدید که می‌خواهید نویسنده شوید؟
نوشتن را به صورت آکادمیک و در مدرسه فرا نگرفتم. از روزی که کتاب «مدار راس السرطان» هنری میلر را خواندم فکر نویسنده شدن دیگر رهایم نکرد و به خودم می‌گفتم که مانه، آرتور رمبو و بودلر هم مانند من یک انسان بودند؛ پس چرا من نتوانم.؛

در جایی گفته بودید که افسردگی باعث شد آخرین رمانتان را با عنوان «کاترینا» بنویسید. آیا افسردگی بخشی از کار شماست؟
من فکر می‌کنم بیشتر نویسندگان از مقداری از افسردگی رنج می‌برند. ما واقعا تنها هستیم و کتابهایمان را در ذهن خود داریم. این هم خیلی عالی و هم خیلی ترسناک و نگران‌ کننده است. زیرا عدم قطعیت‌ها و تردیدهای بسیاری وجود دارد. حجم عظیمی از اندوه در من است و این اندوه را دوست می‌دارم.؛

به انتقادها حساس هستید؟
من برای رضایت منتقدان نمی‌نویسم. زندگی و حیات یک کتاب به نظر منتقدان بستگی ندارد؛ بلکه به میزان رضایت و لذتی که خوانندگان از آن می‌برند وابسته است. شخصا برایم مهم نیست اگر از کتابم متنفر باشند. امروز همه می‌ترسند که توسط مطبوعات و شبکه‌ های اجتماعی ترور شوند. من وقتی کتابی می‌نویسم می‌خواهم یا آن را خیلی دوست دشته باشند یا از آن منتفر باشند و حد وسطی را نمی‌خواهم. مشکل اینجاست که اکثر نویسندگان امروزی از ریسک کردن می‌ترسند. به عنوان مثال از میان نویسندگان فرانسوی میشل ولبک را دوست دارم و تحسینش می‌کنم. او بیش از هر فردی اهل خطر کردن است. او درست مثل خود من است. از این لحاظ که آینه‌ ای مقابل جهان گرفته. این به این معنا نیست که هر چه را می‌نویسد دوست می‌دارم؛ نه به استقبال خطر رفتنش را تحسین می‌کنم.؛

موضوع کتاب جدیدتان درباره عشق است و چرا این موضوع را انتخاب کردید؟
چه چیزی قادر است انسان را سریع‌تر از عشق خوشحال کند و این‌که آیا چیزی زیباتر از زیبایی و رنج عشق وجود دارد. شخصا شیفته ی زیبایی و عشق هستم. حتی اگر آن عشق باعث رنج و اندوه در فرد عاشق بشود. تنها چیزی که در زندگی اهمیت دارد تجربه کردن است؛ حتی اگر آن تجربه موجب رنج و آزارت شود.؛

نسخه سینمایی «هزاران هزار قطعه» قرار است به زودی اکران شود؟
بله توسط سم تیلور- جانسون و امسال در امریکا به اکران عمومی درخواهد آمد و تاکنون هم ملانی لوران، کارگردان فرانسوی برای اقتباس سینمایی از رمان «کاترینا» اعلام آمادگی کرده است.؛

پروژه بعدی شما چیست؟
می‌خواهم یک کتاب درباره دنیای کاملا دیوانه‌ واری که در آن زندگی می‌کنیم بنویسم؛ به ویژه اتفاق‌هایی که در امریکا با روی کار آمدن ترامپ افتاد و درباره ی نابودی ثروت، مهاجرت، شبکه‌ های اجتماعی و دروغ های خبری، و فکر می‌کنم کافی باشد. امروزه دیگر نمی‌توان یک گفتگوی سالم و نرمال با کسی داشت. تندروها افسار جامعه را در دست گرفته‌ اند و اگر با آن‌ها موافقت نکنی تو را خواهند شکست. ا. شربیانی

[This review is excerpted from a essay I wrote for my blog in 2005]

I started reading A Million Little Pieces in the spring of 2003, shortly before its April release. Our friendly neighborhood Random House rep knew I was a shameless trauma junkie, and when she slid the reviewer's copy across the breakroom table I snapped it up.

It was immediately clear to me that this was not a factual book. This is not to say that I thought it was untrue — far from it — but merely that it did not strike me from the outset as a narrative concerned with facts. Were I writing a review of the book I would say that it is "a deeply impressionistic narrative told (for deliberate artistic effect) in a well-contrived matter-of-fact style and voice. The narrative persona often seems to be saying nothing much beyond 'this happened, then this happened, then this happened....' But this flatline voice becomes very quickly an eloquent mode of relating emotions and inner states, all of them tormented and damaged." But I don't write book reviews. The books works, in the opinion of this reader, and it made me a big fan.

This past July I met James Frey. He struck me and others I was with as a surprisingly arrogant individual, given how shy he seemed at the same time. His frank admission of the literary aspirations that led him to write A Million Little Pieces was impressive in its near-megalomaniacal ambition. He stated that he wrote A Million Little Pieces in the style he did as part of a carefully-conceived plan to win a lasting place among literary greats like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Joyce. Nothing like aiming high for yourself.

And now it is revealed: he made it up. Not the whole thing, but pretty big details that, if disqualified, leave us with a pretty tame story bereft of much of tension and narrative drive that fills the book as published. His true story was not, apparently, nearly so thrilling as the narrator in the book would have us believe. Which revelation leads to an outraged public and an even more outraged community of non-fiction writers, who seem to feel that Mr. Frey has irreparably harmed the reputation of the genre and jeopardized their chances at getting their own books published and read by tens of thousands of readers.

What is my opinion of Frey's literary transgression? He now admits that he did indeed lie to us, his readers. He appears to have gone beyond the 'acceptable' bounds of embellishment and given us in his arrogance a tale of the tub, and played us all for suckers. (Unless, of course he is lying about having lied...) Does that make him a charlatan, his literary achievement a fraud? Perhaps. It is certainly disappointing. Yet it does not utterly discredit him for me. When I was reading the book, it was clear to me that this was not a narrative of events so much as the impression of an experience. From an external point of view I knew it was too amazing to be true, yet between the covers of the book, it was true, and that is the only real criterion I insist be met in my reading. In the case of A Million Little Pieces, I was satisfied.


But enough about Mr. Frey. I have bigger fisher to fry now. (Don't even think that there was a pun there.) In all the fracas this past month a troubling theme has been constant. Those who are upset over this incident are operating on an expectation that is to my mind completely unrealistic: the expectation of objective truth in memoir. In fact, in most of the punditry on this, it strikes me that there is a widespread application of journalistic expectations being imposed (inappropriately) to a genre where they do not apply.

Journalists report to us facts, at least that is the assumption we still operate under for the most part. When that 'contract' is breached, as it has been in a handful of highly-publicized cases in recent years, the public is rightly outraged. We read the newspapers and newsweeklies with an expectation of a high level of concrete factual reporting, backed up by carefully-researched and scrupulously-verified evidence and testimony. We expect journalistic integrity. Such are the parameters of the journalistic genre, and its practitioners are painfully aware that they must work within them, or reap the whirlwind.

Does the same apply for the writer of a personal memoir? I do not believe it does, nor that it should. The memoirist is not (typically) a journalist. Nor is he or she under obligation to provide the public with timely information of a factual nature. Instead, he or she is voluntarily sharing, with widely-varying degrees of candor, their personal lived experience, often after a passage of some years from the events described. In some cases the memoirist may employ journalistic techniques to verify their recollections against other sources, in others they might not. But the primary source for the memoir is — like the word says — the memory of the author, the one who remembers. He or she is attempting an 'eyewitness' account of their own lived experience, and such an undertaking, based on individual memory, is simply not going to result in a 'true' story in the sense that the public seems to suddenly demand.

As a reader, I do not turn to memoir seeking objective truth. I am going out on a shaky ideological limb here, but I do not see objective truth as possible in the relation — written or verbal — of personal lived experience. The memory of lived experience is distorted through so many psychological lenses under the tamest of circumstances that it is hardly to be trusted; and memoir as a genre often deals with circumstances that are far from tame. Indeed, in cases of extreme and traumatic experience, it is often only in the distortion of the memory that any narrative is able to emerge, and from that distortion we have received many great and powerful works, particularly those emerging from the devastating events that filled far too much of the twentieth century.

This is not to say there cannot be truth in memoir; there usually is, sometimes a great deal of it. But I believe it misguided to attempt to certify any memoir as objectively true, or to try to hold such work to the same standards that works of journalism or historical research are held to. The distinction may seem pedantic, but I believe it to be an important one. To say something is objectively true makes a claim of empiricism that individual memory can never, never support. And further, I fiercely hold that we as readers have absolutely no right to demand such empiricism from memoirists.

Is this to say that all memoirs are lies, their authors liars? No! Am I proposing that there is a different standard of truth for memoirists. Yes. I do not need every, or any, detail of his ordeal to be empirically verified, or verifiable. I don't want testimonials from witnesses protesting the veracity of the text (a la The Book of Mormon), nor do I want a disclaimer pointing out which bits "really happened" and which bits are just made up. I just want to feel the truth in the narrative. I did so when I read Frey's book. If the reading public gets irredeemably hung up on holding memoirists to unreasonable standards of factuality, the result will inevitably be an impoverished output of memoirs. Memory is what it is, and a person shouldn't have to research their own life. If people can't read a memoir with a grain of salt, then why are they reading a memoir to begin with? Did anyone read Art Spiegelman's Maus and come away believing that Jews had the heads of rodents? I should hope not. Again, I am not trying to defend Frey's choices; I am trying to defend a beautiful genre from a public that seems to have forgotten what it is reasonable for them to expect.

Let me start by saying that the primary reason I decided to read this book now was that I got it for free. Not that I wasn't curious; I've got a definite weakness for angst and drugs and devastation and redemption. I mean, shit like this is ludicrously popular because it like twangs something in us, right? It accesses some kind of emotional core or whatever, some place in us that has struggled too, that wants to see suffering end and the sun shimmer out from behind the clouds and a reward come to those who have kicked and screamed and fought to earn it. Right? Anyway: so there, I admit it, I've always assumed I would probably read this book eventually, and would probably even like it.

Before I get any further, though, I'd like to do a bit of ranting about the whole sordid, shitty scandal. First of all: jesus fuck, how stupid was all that?? I was working at Random House when it was going down; I remember that any of us who wanted to could go to the conference rooms where they were showing the Oprah episode where Nan Talese went on the show so the two of them could get all indignant and talk about how James Frey betrayed them and the American people and bunnies and apple pie. I stayed at my desk, because it was too stupid to possibly think about. It's a memoir, people, and memoirs are fucking subjective. Furthermore, it's a memoir of the first few weeks of convalescence after ten years of nightly blackouts due to extreme consumption of insane amounts of drugs and alcohol. Is it really that surprising that Frey forgot or fucked up some details? And even furthermore, it's a story, it's a book, people, and Frey had the sense to be a writer, to lay a narrative arc over things, to make beginning-middle-end sections, to insert snappy dialogue where it was probably a lot less snappy, to make people maybe just a little bit smarter and more interesting than maybe they really were. This is not wrong. The reason why books aren't explicitly true to life is because life is boring sometimes, and when you write a book or a movie or a comedy act, you can gloss over the inconsequential things and capitalize on the interesting bits.

It was ludicrous how Random House fell all over themselves to work both sides of the issue ("You guys think he's still relevant and important? Oh, then we of course stand by our authors. But wait, you guys over there think he's a fuckup and a liar? Well we were lied to too! Poor us! Please don't stop buying our books!"). Puke and puke. I also have a lot of anger about Oprah (much of which well-meaning friends have tried to get me to get over, but no fucking thank you), and I think she too was just exclusively concerned with protecting her brand and her market share, and that everybody scapegoated Frey in an unforgivable way. But then, of course, there's this: scandals sell some fucking books. Sure, Frey was humiliated on TV and throughout the media, but that motherfucker also made a shit-ton of money. Random House and Oprah kind of had to play both sides of the issue, because both sides were going to buy, buy, buy. Remember that other Oprah mini-scandal with Jonathan Franzen, how she put him on her book club and he said no thanks? Well, let me be clear: the only Oprah books I've ever read, and probably ever will read, are Franzen's and Frey's. Oprah is so powerful that even the people who hate her make her money and are probably good for her overall. That's fucking scary.

Anyway, enough of that; on to the book itself. Will anyone be surprised by this point to hear that I didn't hate it? Well, I didn't. In fact, I liked it a good deal. There were passages where I was pretty damn riveted, honestly, when I couldn't wait until my next cigarette break so I could read some more. Like I said, it's tough to beat the kind of suffering and struggle and survival that's on display here. I've had friends in NA and AA, and many more who maybe should have been; I'm a good audience for this kind of thing. Moreover, though (smoking aside) I've never been an addict myself, I quietly agree with a lot of Frey's ideas (as presented here, that is) about the futility of the Twelve Steps, and how especially the "higher power" bit, along with things like "genetically predisposed" and "childhood abuse" and such like, could be looked at as just tidy ways of disavowing responsibility for one's own mistakes. I mean, for fuck's sake, I smoke a lot of cigarettes, and though yes, I do think I have a bit of an addictive personality, and sure, maybe because my parents didn't take away my bottle early enough I have an oral fixation, and yup, many of my relatives were heavy smokers, but still: every single time I light a cigarette, I am making a decision to do so. Every. Single. Time. I could very certainly not do it, and the times I've quit I've done just that. I am of course in no way saying that heroin is easy to kick, or that physical addiction is as simple to overcome as not striking that match. I am saying, though, that I agree with a lot of the things Frey says here. That's all.

And look: there's no doubt that Frey has crafted himself (or: his "self") into a serious bad-boy hero in this book. I'm sure that he is not nearly as smart and clever and recalcitrant and charismatic and nails-tough as he paints himself to be herein. But see above, okay? It's a fucking memoir. Does anyone for one second believe that any memoirist can remember conversations, word for word, from years ago? Of course not. You remember the general idea, maybe a phrase here or there, and you recreate. Recreate. A memoir is a creative process just like fiction is. Sure, there were times during this book when I rolled my eyes and thought "well isn't that tidy," or "I'm really sure he said that," but that's fine. I am a thinking human being, and I am going to bring my own thoughts and feelings and opinions to what I read, and I am going to dole out my respect and judgement accordingly.

The bottom line, for me, goes back to something I always say about memoirs. One of the quotes on my favorite memoir ever, n  Another Bullshit Night in Suck Cityn, says something like "finally, a person whose life is deserving of a memoir has the skills to write one." Whether Frey really had a double root canal with no anesthetic, whether he commanded the adulation and respect of grizzled mobsters in rehab, whether he puked for ten days straight and cursed out all the therapists and is a perfect fighter and is actually afraid of nothing — that is all irrelevant, or at least secondary. What matters is that Frey has not only gone through some major major shit and lived to tell about it, he is capable of telling about it in a way that is generally compelling and often fascinating. Sure, he made a lot of really weird style choices (like random capitalizations and no indented paragraphs), which I found stupid and distracting. Sure, his story is often overdramatized and too pat. Sure, he paints himself as a pitch-perfect brilliant bad-boy-rebel anti-hero. But fuck. This is still a pretty great book, and I'm really glad I read it.

The first part of this book is well done. Frey does describe what it is like to be an addict well. I'm one & I know. After that, it was pure fiction - very dangerous fiction for an addict.

From his description, I believe he went to the same treatment center as I did. They would never allow him to run his own program or pull half the crap he said he did. His best thinking & will power got him to treatment. It isn't logical nor part of any reputable treatment plan, to allow the addict to cure himself. If it was, none of us would ever be in a treatment center in the first place. I went there because it was that or death.

My mother read the book & said it gave her an insight into my disease she had never had before. Kudos for that. Seriously, I am most thankful & it's the only reason this didn't get a single star. She believed the whole book - I knew most of it was fiction way before Oprah finally got around to saying it.

Thumbs down to Oprah on this one - she had to know it too, from her medical expert who supposedly told her well before air time. As for Mr. Frey, he got his moment of fame, probably a lot of money & hopefully he really isn't an addict or it will likely kill him.

There are better ways for a loved one to know what it is like to be an addict. If that person won't go to AA, NA or Alanon - if you think this is the only way for them to learn - by all means give them the book. Just rip the last half to 2/3 of it out first.