[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.

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.

Ritmo incalzante



Senza un attimo di respiro. Ti droghi, sei ridotto come una larva, entri in comunità e piano piano, piano piano torni alla vita, mettendoci l'anima e anche qualcosa di più, senza un attimo di respiro, senza sconti.
Sembrava si trattasse di un'autobiografia, poi lo scandalo da Oprah Winfrey ha fatto saltare fuori la verità, ma la qualità della scrittura è indiscutibile (tranne sul finale quando diventa un po' tutto "volemose bene" e un po' troppo new age per i miei gusti).
Per il resto un capolavoro letterario.

This book's title is a little misleading. It's actually just one gigantic piece. Of absolute bullshit. That anyone was remotely surprised when it was revealed that Frey embellished portions of this "memoir" is in itself shocking. It reads like a novel the entire way though -- the characterization, the arc, the dialogue. The character Frey creates for himself is totally unreal; he's a completely stubborn, petulant, tough-guy asshole throughout, but he's also really polite to certain people, he says things like "Thank you. I really appreciate what you've done for me here." when it's convenient for the story -- i.e. just when the reader is beginning to think Frey is a complete fuck, he says something nice. Which basically makes him come off as a total liar, which, of course, is exactly what Frey is.

The (obviously fabricated) dialogue is tiresome and clichéd. Check out this little gem. Frey is talking with a woman he's fallen in love with at rehab, and she's telling him how she's never been in love, that "Men always want to fuck me, but no one has ever loved me." Frey goes on to say (all of the book's dialogue is quotation-mark-less, unindented, and largely unattributed):

If it makes any difference, I don't want to fuck you.
She laughs.
Thanks.
I think you're beautiful, but I wouldn't fuck you because when we were done, I wouldn't want you to feel fucked. I would try to make love to you . . . but when it was over, I would want you to feel loved.

Give me a fucking break. Did a high schooler write this?

And what about the lack of indention? For some reason, Frey decided it would be cool to just not indent his paragraphs. Just, you know. For fun. To make it more real. It's completely ridiculous. He also capitalizes certain important Words here and there for emphasis; he actually does this to the subject of practically every other sentence. The effect is distracting, pretentious, tiresome, and silly. He uses all-caps to emphasize certain parts of dialogue, but then he also sometimes sets dialogue in bold, also for emphasis. Sometimes he even uses bold and all-caps, I guess when something is supposed to be super emphasized. Here's a question, though. What's more emphatic, bold or all-caps?

Probably the most distracting stylistic trick is Frey's hip and arbitrary dropping of commas and ands. Which leads to a lot of sentences like: I walk into the room the room is empty I walk to the bathroom I look at myself in the mirror. Or: I try to fall asleep I can't fall asleep. But then he'll do stuff like:

But then I remember.
The one thing.
That haunts me.
Haunts me the most.
Haunts me.

This is all an obvious attempt to cover up for lack substance with style, and it's rampant throughout the book and it's highly distracting.

And then so what does macho-man, fuck-the-twelve-step-program-I'm-bigger-than-that-I-don't-believe-in-God-I-can-do-this-shit-on-my-own-even-though-everyone-in-here-is-telling-me-I-can't James Frey do first thing when he gets out of rehab? He goes straight to a bar, orders literally a pint of bourbon (sorry: Bourbon) and just stares at it, has an internal fuck-you-I'm-fucking-better-than-you conversation with it, then walks off, symbolizing his victory over addiction. Yeah. I'm sure this actually happened.

Sincere congratulations to the author for overcoming his addiction, but this book is just pathetic.

The controversy surrounding this one has intrigued me since I was a pre-teen in the mid-2000s.

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.

As usual I am a bit late to the party having never heard of this book until someone recommended it to me at a party in May 2017! When I mentioned it on my book group it appears the entire world had heard about it and read it, which obviously led me to download it immediately and read it.

I am not going to lie and say it’s a easy read or a brilliant book, it’s bloody harrowing and painful and raw. If you have any knowledge of addictions, the 12 step programme or rehab then this book doesn’t just speak to you, it shouts and screams and cries and hurts.

A Million Little Pieces was originally published in 2003 as a factual memoir and in September 2005 was picked up as an Oprah’s Book Club selection which then became the number 1 paperback non-fiction book on Amazon and topped the New York Time Best Seller List for 15 straight weeks. In 2008 after a six-week investigation it was revealed that the book contained fabrications and was not a completely factual memoir.

Whether the controversy surrounding this book is true or false, this is an eye-opening, harrowing and breathtakingly painful book to read which I believe will stay with me for years and years.

I read this after the scandal of Frey's embellishments came out. I found I was angry through the entire book, but once I committed to over 100 pages, I felt I had to finish it. When all is said and done, I'm not sure what to believe and what to discard as fantasy.

I read this already aware parts of it were untrue, or exagerated. I don't think it makes a bit of difference. For one, how reliable are the memories of a drug addict anyway? I mean when they are in full-blown addiction phase. To elaborate a bit for dramatic effect is not that big of a deal. I think all teenagers should read this. Yes, he may have stretched the truth here and there, but for some, the truth is so much more horrific than his was. Why does it matter? Just because it wasn't all strictly true for him, it was certainly not unbelievable. It's good for addiction to be portrayed in as scary a light as possible. There is not always a happy ending and 15% is pretty crummy odds!

My Book Club chose to read this Book for the month of June.
I had owned it for years and never gotten around to reading it.
Then I read it.
The Book.
A Million Little Pieces.
It is the allegedly true but probably not story of a Man who smokes a lot of crack and huffs gas and drinks and drinks and drinks until he is so sick he blacks out and he worries his friends and his family until he is sent to a Clinic. He has no front teeth and his cheek has a gash. He is hurt from smoking crack and huffing gas and drinking and drinking and drinking.
He is a mess.
He needs help.
He is a mess and he needs help.
He does not want to be at the Clinic and fights all the Rules for the first 200 pages. But the Man meets some Friends who help him through the tough times, a Girl who he falls in love with, and a hard-nosed psychologist who does not give up on him. The Man is sure he can kick his habit without the help of God or Twelve Steps.
This is his story.
Allegedly.
I like this book, I thought, when I first started reading it, even though I knew it was probably 80% bull. I will read it anyway, I thought. It is a fast read. Look at how fast I am reading this book! What a fast read.
And then the Book started to annoy me.
Why aren't there quotation marks? It is not like a Cormac McCarthy book that eschews punctuation for the sake of sparse, beautiful writing. It is just eschewing for the sake of eschewing. This is ridiculous.
Why does the Man who writes the book capitalize some Nouns but not other nouns? Is the Man doing it because he thinks it's artsy? I don't think a memoir should be artsy as much as it should be factual.
Why are there no paragraph breaks or margins? Is it because the Man is a Rule-breaker and Hard-nosed and because he has a Devil May Care attitude? I think the Man just thinks he's cool, and Cool Guys don't need margins or paragraph breaks.
Why does the Man keep repeating things? He eats eggs. He eats cheese. He eats eggs and cheese. He vomits and vomits and vomits and vomits. He is scared and heartbroken and worried and mad and facing his anger and wanting to drink and do drugs and hurt himself. He is scared and heartbroken and worried and mad and facing his anger and wanting to drink and do drugs and hurt himself. I want to hurt him for writing lists instead of sentences. I also want to hurt him
For
Doing.
Things.
Like.
This.
But there's something about the book that made me want to read more.
And I read it.
I didn't throw it across the room in a fit of Rage.
It made me not want to do Crack.
But I've never wanted to do Crack.
And maybe that's why my Million Pieces are still together.

This is the saddest, dumbest, most pathetic piece of male power fantasy ever written.

"Okay, so like this one time I was a total drug addict. I totally did more drugs than anyone else and no one else would have lived if they did as many drugs as me. Anyway, then I had like all these cuts and there was blood everywhere and my teeth went through my face. Yeah. And then, like, the doctors were going to sew me up and do surgery and stuff--like, really painful surgery, like, literally as painful as a root canal, and they couldn't give me any pain killer because of all the other drugs and me being an addict and whatever, so I could feel everything, and I just, like, held on really tight and let them do it. Yeah. And then there was the rehab place, and like, there were tough guys who were maybe going to fight me, but I just like, looked at them, and then they knew to leave me alone. Cuz I'm just really, like, hardcore. And there was this federal judge guy, like really important, and he totally couldn't handle his shit, and he was all, "what do I do?" And I told him how to handle his shit, and then he like, made it so I didn't have to go to prison for any of the stuff I did, because I basically saved his life. And then there was this mafia guy, he basically adopted me as his son, so I'm like, tight with the Godfather and stuff. Oh, and there was a chick, she was really into me, but then she died or something."

Man, this was an absolutely terrible book. When I worked in a book store, long long ago, I was instantly put off by the description on the back. "The most lacerating tale of drug addiction since William S. Burroughs' Junky." I am not sure it is fair to compare a first time novelist with one of the best writers of our time. This feeling was exaggerated once talk of deception on the part of Frey founds its way to my ears. I didn't have much interest in EVER reading this, but it was recommended as a great work of FICTION by a very trusted friend, and my brother won it in a raffle.

I really should have skipped to the last page, and avoided all of the mucky, icky content. Maybe the worst book I have ever read. I can't believe so many people were touched by it. It is especially hard for me to imagine Oprah and her fans being so drawn in. For me, I didn't really care if the entire thing was a lie, it was horribly written. I didn't care for any of the characters, didn't feel like his time in rehab was very awful, didn't like the general theme of the book. Definitely seemed like some chump ass hat bragging about what a badass he was in college. Good thing mommy and daddums saved him, and continue to defend his lame ass book. Whoops, I got angry there, and strayed from the original point of this review. Not in ANY WAY a significant contribution to literature, ideas, life, culture, etc. Simply horrible to read, did not enjoy, reader beware!