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A Million Little Pieces (Oprah's Book Club)
by Authors:
James Frey
Paperback Description:
The electrifying opening of James Frey's debut memoir, A Million Little Pieces, smash-cuts to the then 23-year-old author on a Chicago-bound plane "covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood." Wanted by authorities in three states, without ID or any money, his face mangled and missing four front teeth, Frey is on a steep descent from a dark marathon of drug abuse. His stunned family checks him into a famed Minnesota drug treatment center where a doctor promises "he will be dead within a few days" if he starts to use again, and where Frey spends two agonizing months of detox confronting "The Fury" head on:
I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can.
One of the more harrowing sections is when Frey submits to major dental surgery without the benefit of anesthesia or painkillers (he fights the mind-blowing waves of "bayonet" pain by digging his fingers into two old tennis balls until his nails crack). His fellow patients include a damaged crack addict with whom Frey wades into an ill-fated relationship, a federal judge, a former championship boxer, and a mobster (who, upon his release, throws a hilarious surf-and-turf bacchanal, complete with pay-per-view boxing). In the book's epilogue, when Frey ticks off a terse update on everyone, you can almost hear the Jim Carroll Band's brutal survivor's lament "People Who Died" kicking in on the soundtrack of the inevitable film adaptation.
The rage-fueled memoir is kept in check by Frey's cool, minimalist style. Like his steady mantra, "I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal," Frey's use of repetition takes on a crisp, lyrical quality which lends itself to the surreal experience. The book could have benefited from being a bit leaner. Nearly 400 pages is a long time to spend under Frey's influence, and the stylistic acrobatics (no quotation marks, random capitalization, left-aligned text, wild paragraph breaks) may seem too self-conscious for some readers, but beyond the literary fireworks lurks a fierce debut. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Average Customer Rating:
Interesting
This is an interesting book about addiction, depression and hope. I think people who have been through the process will be able to identify with various elements of the book. I also recommend The Little Boy by Rohan Hall as great little treasure for people who are trying to learn how to be happy.
Huh?
Three things amaze me about this book:
1. That Frey thought anyone would believe this embarrasingly awful macho fantasy story.
2. That the publisher it was submitted to didn't spray coffee over every page as he/she burst into mocking contemptuous laughter when Frey describes facing down various Mafia Dons, storming crack-houses to rescue distressed damsels and beating a man to death for touching his thigh.
3. That there are, apparently, millions of witless chumps out there who find Freys memoir remotely plausible, and even inspiring.
This isn't quite the worst book I've ever read - its certainly in the bottom five - but nothing has filled me with despair at the poor taste and gullibilty of the general public quite like the success of this extremely silly and mediocre book.
A MILLION LITTLE PIECES OF S$%T
ALTHOUGH I AM NOT PROUD TO ADMIT IT, I HAVE BEEN TO REHAB 4 TIMES. I AM PROUD TO ADMIT I AM NOW 3 YEARS CLEAN AND SOBER. I READ THIS BOOK WITH DISGUST AND CONTEMPT FOR THE AUTHOR. HAVING JUST FINISHED IT A FEW MINUTES AGO, I WOULD NOT BE SUPRIZED TO LEARN IF MR. FREY WERE IN FACT NOT THE TYPE OF ADDICT HE CLAIMS HE WAS.
THE BOOK SHOULD BE READ AS SADISTIC, BAD FICTION. IT IS LARGELY BASED ON OUTRIGHT LIES. ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH THE PROCESS CAN EASILY PICK UP ON THIS BEFORE PAGE 100. UNFORTUNATELY, SOMEONE WHO HAS NOT WILL PROBABLY READ THIS AND THINK THAT THIS IS AN HONEST ACCOUNT-OR AN ADDICT WHO HAS NOT BEEN THROUGH THE PROCESS WILL THINK THAT THIS IS THE WAY IT IS, AND GOD HELP THEM.
FIRST MR. FREY WOULD HAVE THE READER BELIEVE THAT HE UNDERWENT MAJOR DENTAL SURJERY, HAD HIS NOSE REALLIGNED, AND HAD FORTY STICHES W/OUT THE AID OF PAINKILLERS OR ANESTHESIA. A DENTIST COULD LOSE THEIR LISCENCE OVER SOMETHING LIKE THAT, NOT TO MENTION THE FACTOR OF MALPRACTICE. A REHAB FACILITY WOULD NOT ADMIT SOMEONE IN HIS CONDITION. IF HE WERE IN THE SHAPE HE CLAIMS HE WOULD HAVE BEEN BROUGHT TO A HOSPITAL FIRST, AND THEN ADDMITTED WHEN DOCTORS GAVE THE O.K. A REHAB WILL NOT ADMIT SOMEONE WHO IS STILL SERIOUSLY DETOXING W/O MEDICAL CLEARANCE, MUCH LESS SOMEONE WHO NEEDS MAJOR DENTAL SURJERY AND OTHER MEDICAL PROCEDURES.
THREATENING A FELLOW PATEINT IN A REHAB IS AUTOMATIC DISCHARGE FROM THE FACILTY NO MATTER WHICH ONE IT IS. IT IS THE FACILITIES RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT THE WELLLFARE AND SAFETY OF ALL RESIDENTS.
TRASHING THE FURNITURE IN HIS ROOM WHEN HE FIRST GOT THERE? HE WOULD HAVE BEEN BOUNCED OUT ON HIS ASS!!
AND THE BEST LIE OF THEM ALL, AT THE END,HE CLAIMS A COUNSELOR (WHOM HE HAD JUST THREATENED) DROVE HIM TO A CRACKHOUSE TO PICK UP HIS GIRLFRIEND. THAT COUNSELOR WOULD HAVE LOST HIS CREDENTIALS, AND BEEN FIRED IN A HEARTBEAT.
HIS DEPICTION OF THE OTHER PATIENTS AND DRUG ADDICTS/ALCOHOLICS IN GENERAL, ARE SO CLICHED, IT'S ALMOST AS IF HE IS WRITING FROM A PLACE OF LIMITED KNOWLEDGE AND/OR EXPERIENCE, THAT WHAT HE'S REALLY DOING, IS WRITING WHAT HE THINKS THEY 'MIGHT' BE LIKE.
THIS BOOK WOULD BE ONLY HALF INTERESTING IF THE AUTHOR LABAELED IT FOR WHAT IT IS:FICTION. BUT THE FACT THAT HE CALLS IT A MEMIOR IS MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE AND DISGUSTING.
I WOULD NOT BE SUPRIZED IF ALL THE REVIEWS ON HERE CLAIMING HOW GREAT AND ACCURATE IT IS ARE COMING FROM ANCHOR BOOKS/NAN TALESE, HIS PUBLISHER, BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY THIS BOOK CAN BE READ BY ANYONE WHO KNOWS WHAT IT IS REALLY LIKE AND BE THOUGHT OF AS FACT.
MR. FREY IS OUTRIGHT LIAR.
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Huh? 
