A Million Little Hypocrites
This past two weeks have been difficult for James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces. I was one of those who, although I am not an alcoholic or a drug user, was moved by Frey’s touching memoir—enough so that I bought his second book My Friend Leonard, based on a character from the first.
Let me say this outright: I am still moved by Frey’s memoir. And I enjoyed the second book as well.
Writing is a delicate thing and not born of a black and white world. For one thing, drama sells. Plain and simple. Write about a trip to the corner store to buy a loaf of bread and a quart of buttermilk and few care to read what you have to say, regardless of a potential point buried within. Alter the same grocery trek slightly to include an insidious drug dealer, a gun, and set the story at night instead of on a sunny, uneventful morning, and voila! Interest is piqued. The underlying storyline or point may not change, but the writing has taken the dramatic turn, if only for entertainment purposes (and, of course, to make the piece saleable).
I watched Oprah this past week to see her second interview with Frey, primarily because, like many people, I wanted to find out what was true and what wasn’t. This was due more to morbid curiosity than it was my questioning the validity or impact of the book.
What I walked away with was the coppery taste of hypocrisy in my mouth.
Oprah questioning the act of cultivating drama around a person’s life story? Oprah wondering how someone could possibly exaggerate the facts surrounding dark events in order to sensationalize?
Is this not like McDonalds crying foul because the latest health reports evidence an obese society?
What would an Oprah story be if not scripted and edited for dramatic effect, or devoid of an audience of devout followers ready to thunder applause or shed a tear on cue? Face it, an Oprah story is nothing without the contextual smoothing of a good production team.
So she gives away a bunch of cars…if you are going to give an audience of ne’er-hads each a new car out of the pureness of your heart, why do it on national television—why not do it discreetly and with personal disclaimers that the receiving parties will never divulge the source? In fact, if the raw truth is all that matters, why have a publicity agent or writers or make-up artists or editors at all?? Why not keep it real, just as it is, take the good with the bad and don’t edit or massage a thing?
For one thing because the raw truth a billionaire magnate does not make. The entirety of Oprah’s canon is scripted, edited, put to music. Does this mean her motivations are any less sincere or that the story’s central point isn’t true? I don’t believe so. But it does implicate the queen of daytime television in a directed plot to sell more commercials, blast the competition in the ratings game, and make 1.3 billion bucks.
In other words: The American Dream.
In my opinion, James Frey was guilty of exaggeration, not artifice. He took creative license with a memoir. Should a memoir be made of the basic essence of truth? Yes. But does this mean that to make a better read, to reach more of the intended audience—heck, even to make more money—that the author cannot or should not take some creative license and make the girlfriend more pure, the best friend more loyal, the fights more animated, the injuries more gruesome—(yes, even the jail sentence longer)?
We allow corporations, advertisers, government, and even talk show divas, to pull the wool over our eyes so often that we must cut eyeholes to have any hope of finding the unvarnished truth.
Spin doctors, producers, editors, publicists: why even acknowledge these plastic surgeons of media and personality, Oprah, much less give them employment, if you are a champion of the unvarnished, unscripted, uncivilized truth?
The irony here is that Doubleday—the publisher Oprah would have you believe responsible for this faux pax—was not the true catalyst in the book’s meteoric rise to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Oprah was. By bestowing the coveted “Book Club” stamp of approval she single-handedly launched this ship of questionable content.
Where was the crack staff of—as Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen so adamantly suggested—$25,000 to $30,000-a-year fact-checkers for the Oprah Book Club? Cohen claimed they’d be able uncover the truth in “a half-hour” of fact-checking. Of course, he was referring to the book publishers…but in this case, why does Oprah feel she is immune from the same criteria?
The talk show diva claimed she questioned the validity of some of the book’s scenes as she read them (“how could this possibly be true?”). So what did Oprah—who presumably understood what her endorsement would mean to this memoir full of “red flags”—do?
She blessed it, and a million loyal subjects followed her recommendation.
But according to Oprah, Doubleday is at fault for not ferreting out the truth—a truth that apparently, despite the red flags and transparency, escaped her army of resources as well.
I submit Frey did what any successful writer does: he crafted a piece of literature. A memoir is still just a story; the story of one’s life, as told from the soul of the author. A memoir is written to reach others who might benefit (or even, God forbid, be entertained) from the telling.
In the case of A Million Little Pieces could the publisher have made things clearer with a “Based on a True Story” tagline? Probably. But I’d say this to you:
Anyone who needs to be told to take a little salt with everything one reads needs a lot more than a sodium boost.
Footnote: James Frey’s agent of four years, Kassie Evashevski of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, dropped the author cold Wednesday. Her implication that the book’s resonance as “the most visceral and vivid description of drug addiction I had ever read” was somehow lessened by Frey’s admitting to solecism rings hollow (and more than a little naïve) to me, particularly from an agent in the publishing industry. The descriptions are no less vivid and visceral because they are dramatized.
I don’t see the conflict here (other than a literary agent and her agency not wanting to risk being on the wrong side of disappointment with one of the world’s most ubiquitous women).
The words moved Evashevski and, in turn, Doubleday. They moved Oprah and her genuflecting legions. And they moved me.
Mission accomplished, James Frey.
The back seat is quiet.
Let me say this outright: I am still moved by Frey’s memoir. And I enjoyed the second book as well.
Writing is a delicate thing and not born of a black and white world. For one thing, drama sells. Plain and simple. Write about a trip to the corner store to buy a loaf of bread and a quart of buttermilk and few care to read what you have to say, regardless of a potential point buried within. Alter the same grocery trek slightly to include an insidious drug dealer, a gun, and set the story at night instead of on a sunny, uneventful morning, and voila! Interest is piqued. The underlying storyline or point may not change, but the writing has taken the dramatic turn, if only for entertainment purposes (and, of course, to make the piece saleable).
I watched Oprah this past week to see her second interview with Frey, primarily because, like many people, I wanted to find out what was true and what wasn’t. This was due more to morbid curiosity than it was my questioning the validity or impact of the book.
What I walked away with was the coppery taste of hypocrisy in my mouth.
Oprah questioning the act of cultivating drama around a person’s life story? Oprah wondering how someone could possibly exaggerate the facts surrounding dark events in order to sensationalize?
Is this not like McDonalds crying foul because the latest health reports evidence an obese society?
What would an Oprah story be if not scripted and edited for dramatic effect, or devoid of an audience of devout followers ready to thunder applause or shed a tear on cue? Face it, an Oprah story is nothing without the contextual smoothing of a good production team.
So she gives away a bunch of cars…if you are going to give an audience of ne’er-hads each a new car out of the pureness of your heart, why do it on national television—why not do it discreetly and with personal disclaimers that the receiving parties will never divulge the source? In fact, if the raw truth is all that matters, why have a publicity agent or writers or make-up artists or editors at all?? Why not keep it real, just as it is, take the good with the bad and don’t edit or massage a thing?
For one thing because the raw truth a billionaire magnate does not make. The entirety of Oprah’s canon is scripted, edited, put to music. Does this mean her motivations are any less sincere or that the story’s central point isn’t true? I don’t believe so. But it does implicate the queen of daytime television in a directed plot to sell more commercials, blast the competition in the ratings game, and make 1.3 billion bucks.
In other words: The American Dream.
In my opinion, James Frey was guilty of exaggeration, not artifice. He took creative license with a memoir. Should a memoir be made of the basic essence of truth? Yes. But does this mean that to make a better read, to reach more of the intended audience—heck, even to make more money—that the author cannot or should not take some creative license and make the girlfriend more pure, the best friend more loyal, the fights more animated, the injuries more gruesome—(yes, even the jail sentence longer)?
We allow corporations, advertisers, government, and even talk show divas, to pull the wool over our eyes so often that we must cut eyeholes to have any hope of finding the unvarnished truth.
Spin doctors, producers, editors, publicists: why even acknowledge these plastic surgeons of media and personality, Oprah, much less give them employment, if you are a champion of the unvarnished, unscripted, uncivilized truth?
The irony here is that Doubleday—the publisher Oprah would have you believe responsible for this faux pax—was not the true catalyst in the book’s meteoric rise to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Oprah was. By bestowing the coveted “Book Club” stamp of approval she single-handedly launched this ship of questionable content.
Where was the crack staff of—as Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen so adamantly suggested—$25,000 to $30,000-a-year fact-checkers for the Oprah Book Club? Cohen claimed they’d be able uncover the truth in “a half-hour” of fact-checking. Of course, he was referring to the book publishers…but in this case, why does Oprah feel she is immune from the same criteria?
The talk show diva claimed she questioned the validity of some of the book’s scenes as she read them (“how could this possibly be true?”). So what did Oprah—who presumably understood what her endorsement would mean to this memoir full of “red flags”—do?
She blessed it, and a million loyal subjects followed her recommendation.
But according to Oprah, Doubleday is at fault for not ferreting out the truth—a truth that apparently, despite the red flags and transparency, escaped her army of resources as well.
I submit Frey did what any successful writer does: he crafted a piece of literature. A memoir is still just a story; the story of one’s life, as told from the soul of the author. A memoir is written to reach others who might benefit (or even, God forbid, be entertained) from the telling.
In the case of A Million Little Pieces could the publisher have made things clearer with a “Based on a True Story” tagline? Probably. But I’d say this to you:
Anyone who needs to be told to take a little salt with everything one reads needs a lot more than a sodium boost.
Footnote: James Frey’s agent of four years, Kassie Evashevski of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, dropped the author cold Wednesday. Her implication that the book’s resonance as “the most visceral and vivid description of drug addiction I had ever read” was somehow lessened by Frey’s admitting to solecism rings hollow (and more than a little naïve) to me, particularly from an agent in the publishing industry. The descriptions are no less vivid and visceral because they are dramatized.
I don’t see the conflict here (other than a literary agent and her agency not wanting to risk being on the wrong side of disappointment with one of the world’s most ubiquitous women).
The words moved Evashevski and, in turn, Doubleday. They moved Oprah and her genuflecting legions. And they moved me.
Mission accomplished, James Frey.
The back seat is quiet.
posted by Commish at 4:02 PM
1 comments
