Everyone is talking about it. Did James Frey lie in his "memoir" A Million Little Pieces, and if so, is it within his creative license? Will it ruin his career or give it non-needed boost? Do the embellishments he's admitted to in anyway make the book less valid or important?
I love what Ariel Gore has to say.
Talk amongst yourselves.
6 Comments:
I thought Ariel, Bee Lavender, & Susie Bright all had really interesting takes on this.
By Susan, at 9:39 PM
I didn't know about the book until he'd already been exposed so my reaction would probably be different if I'd already read it. But I think Ariel Gore's reaction is pretty spot on.
Just a few months ago I read a very silly book called Death Rat (by Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater fame so it's not like I was expecting high art). The basic premise is this old scrawny guy writes a crazy book about a giant rat in a small town in Minnesota and through a strange set of circumstances the publishers agree to publish it as non-fiction. The old guy knew no one would ever believe he could do what the story said but he really needed the money so he finds a rugged outdoorsy-looking actor to pretend he wrote it. Then they have to talk the people in the small town into saying it was a true story..
This whole brouhaha make me think of that book, as silly as it was. Maybe what this guy wrote is more of a "worst case scenario" memoir- What he thinks could have happened. I dunno. I imagine the big Jim Carroll fans will think he's a lying poseur. But Garrison Keillor has based his entire career on fictional memoirs about a whole town. And in other media the Cohen brothers said in the credits for "Fargo" that it was based on a true story when it really wasn't. But that didn't change the way I felt about the movie.
I say good writing is good writing.
By littlehedgehog, at 9:50 PM
I haven't read the book. I like what Ariel had to write about it. Here are my thoughts. One of the course I took last semester was called Blurred Boundaries. In it, we looked at fiction and creative non-fiction/memoir, whatever you want to call it. We looked at the way fact and fiction roll around each other, ready for a spinning metaphor? the way they twist together in a sort of double-ply way. The term that became meaningful to me over the course of writing 3-5 pages about each piece we read throughout the 16 weeks is this: emotional truth. That's the "real life" that I want to read. If the author needs to remember things his or her own way, or wants to change them to make that emotional truth more real for the reader, I'm for it. I'm all about emotional truth in my fiction. I'm taking a creative nonfiction workshop this semester, too, and I'm working on my first piece, and it's hard. Nah, not the writing, but the subject. Because it hurts me, because it scares me, because it's important to me, because it rings of truth to me. And it would be a hell of a lot easier to gloss over things, to not dig in...and that digging in may include changing things in order to get to the truth.
Great topic, Carole! Thanks for letting me comment. xx
By Beverly, at 10:36 PM
I guess I live in a cave. Never heard of him or his book.
Amy
By amylovie, at 7:08 PM
Remember your first high school, World history class? One of the first "Historians" you probably studied was Herodotus. Herodotus created one of the first written accounts of the Persian Wars. However, his "history" was a mix of myth, fact, tall tales and gossip.
Most Historians agree it was not the type of history he wrote that was important but the fact that he "wrote" history. Before Herodotus, and other men like him, Greeks mainly relied on Poets for their history lessons.
I have not read James Frey's book but perhaps his value as an author is not in his facts but his story.
By Ramona, at 12:15 PM
It's all a marketing ploy ;-) Look at how many books he's sold. I agree with Ariel, it's a memoir afterall, not a history book. Doesn't make me want to read it more or less. Interesting, though, after all the hype my husband won't touch it.
Li
By http://lifesastitch.typepad.com, at 8:57 AM
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