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Paperback Description: News from Doubleday & Anchor Books
The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn’t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.
It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor's policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher's relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey's repeated representations of the book's accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished.
We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little Pieces. We are immediately taking the following actions:
We are issuing a publisher's note to be included in all future printings of the book.*
James Frey has written an author's note that will appear in all future printings of the book.* Read the author's note.
The jacket for all future editions will carry the line "With new notes from the publisher and from the author."
*Customers should find the Author's Note and Publisher's Note in copies purchased from Amazon.com after April 15, 2006. Note: The following editorial reviews were written before the recent revelations by James Frey and the publisher.
Amazon.com 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:
Good writer?
What has happened to our reading public when it is claimed with gusto that James Frey is a good writer?
Henry James is a good writer. Thomas Hardy is a good writer. Harper Lee is a hauntingly good writer.
James Frey is a cop-out. It is exceedingly difficult to write well, especially when the subject is as colossally emotional as Frey's. So Frey resorts to tricks and distractions so that he doesn't have to write well. He repeats himself, repeats himself, repeats himself. He dispenses with convention - no quotation marks, for instance. He strings together phrases and fragments into garbled sentences. He describes intense emotions simply with a string of expletives. He writes like a teenage boy might talk. Perhaps this lends a certain authenticity to the voice, but in my mind, it is a cop-out. I would not be surprised if we all got to read the first draft - no reason to edit something that is garbled on purpose.
I'll admit that the story is at times compelling, and certain scenes, particularly with Lilly, are poignant. These things kept me reading the book, but it was in spite of the writing, not because of it.
I do not particularly care that the details were embellished. I have a fairly refined BS meter, and would have ignored over the top stories anyway. I do find it ironic, however, that Frey himself talked about his own BS meter when conversing with certain characters whose stories were unbelievable.
How did this sell so many copies? Sometimes it seems like art is a fashion business.
A Real Page Turner
What can be said about a book that hasn't been said already? If you read it and enjoyed it on it's own merits, it was good. If you read it as "fact", felt "betrayed", and wanted your money back, because you feel "lied to", then it's bad. Alright, they has been said before.
Aside from the furor surrounding the book, I read it with an open mind. I don't profess to be any better when doing this. It was a Book Club selection, on the Bestsellers list at the time, and I read it in three days. The whole time I was reading, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. I guess there's a reason it's still in the top1000 as I write this and over 1500 people have posted.
Bottom line - it's a matter of taste. I like books I can fly through, fiction or not. Any book these days that calls their story 100% fact is lying to you. That's always some poetic license because it makes for a better read. I liked it and will read it again.
This guy can write!
This book is amazing. You truly feel as if you are there with James in his journey. Who cares if he stretched the truth...the bottom line is that he was successful in his endeavors and triumphed despite the statistics of staying clean. His power is within him. Stay clean, stay healthy, and stay happy. James is a true inspiration!
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DVD's
Good writer? 
A Real Page Turner 
This guy can write! 
