Thursday, January 12, 2006

A Million Little Lies

Three months ago, in what the talk show host termed a "radical departure," [Oprah] Winfrey announced that "A Million Little Pieces," author James Frey's nonfiction memoir of his vomit-caked years as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal, was her latest selection for the world's most powerful book club.

In an October 26 show entitled "The Man Who Kept Oprah Awake At Night," Winfrey hailed Frey's graphic and coarse book as "like nothing you've ever read before. Everybody at Harpo is reading it. When we were staying up late at night reading it, we'd come in the next morning saying, 'What page are you on?'" In emotional filmed testimonials, employees of Winfrey's Harpo Productions lauded the book as revelatory, with some choking back tears. When the camera then returned to a damp-eyed Winfrey, she said, "I'm crying 'cause these are all my Harpo family so, and we all loved the book so much."
There does seem to be one teeny-tiny little problem, though. It might be all made up.

The Smoking Gun conducted a six-week investigation into bad-boy James Frey's life and were pretty much unable to find much more than a few hours spent in a county jail for a drunk driving charge back in college. A lengthy read, but interesting and thorough.


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