James Frey, the Memoir, and Truth
By now, everyone in America has heard of James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces. If not, where have you been? He's the only thirtysomething memoirist that I know of who has recently appeared on both Oprah and Larry King, and if that won't make you a household name, I'm not sure what else will
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I refer you to something a friend of mine said regarding this:
"Of course Frey didn't just innocently remember incidents incorrectly. He made shit up. I don't want to blow anyone's mind here, but that's what writers do. Memoirists regularly admit to this. Tim O'Brian talks about it in 'How to Write a True War Story' or whatever it's called, and Lauren Slater wrote a whole book about it called... Lying.
Happily, poets dont have to quantify the level of "fact" in their work with a label of either fiction or nonfiction. Though, if it came out that Sylvia Plath was a jolly young woman full of vim, vigor, and happy memoirs of childhood and her father, I bet angsty people everywhere would be in an uproar. Writers do have to construct public images for themselves- example is Robert Frost reading at the Kennedy Inauguration looking like Old Man New England. Or Hemingway showing up to photo shoots for Esquire looking like he just got back from a hunting trip carrying like half of a deer. Frost and Hemingway are both the shit, but they also both crafted public images that they hoped corresponded to their writing."
As far as the accusation that I don't understand the nature of publishing: I really think you're giving Frey way too much credit. The publishing industry is like any other big business, and they're aren't just two people (the editor and the writer) involved in the publication and marketing of a book. The thrust of my argument was that Frey wrote a MEMOIR, and that therefore, such a disclaimer would only serve those readers who do not understand the differences between a memoir and a work of non-fiction like a biography.
Writers lie. We do. In fact, that's most of what we do.
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it's not a catch-all for any knid of writing.
what frey wrote is your typical first novel, fiction that is thinly autobiographical but fiction nontheless.
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