James Frey

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James Frey : biography

September 12, 1969 –

Live confrontation with Oprah

As more accusations against the book continued to surface, Winfrey invited Frey on her show. She wanted to hear from him directly whether he had lied to her (and her viewers) or "simply" embellished minor details, as he had told Larry King. Frey admitted to several of the allegations against him. He acknowledged that The Smoking Gun had been accurate when the website reported that Frey had only spent a few hours in jail rather than the 87 days Frey claimed in his memoirs.

Winfrey then brought out Frey’s publisher Nan Talese to defend her decision to classify the book as a memoir. Talese admitted that she had done nothing to check the book’s veracity, despite the fact that her representatives had assured Winfrey’s staff that the book was indeed non-fiction and described it as "brutally honest" in a press release.

David Carr of the New York Times wrote, "Both Mr. Frey and Ms. Talese were snapped in two like dry winter twigs." "Oprah annihilated Frey," proclaimed Larry King. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, "It was a huge relief, after our long national slide into untruth and no consequences, into Swift boating and swift bucks, to see the Empress of Empathy icily hold someone accountable for lying," and the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen was so impressed by the confrontation that he crowned Winfrey "Mensch of the Year."

Aftermath

On January 31, 2006, it was announced that Frey had been dropped by his literary manager, Kassie Evashevski of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, over matters of trust. In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Evashevski said that she had "never personally seen a media frenzy like this regarding a book before." Though she will no longer be representing him, when asked to reflect on Frey’s future as a writer, she said, "I still believe he’s a very talented writer and suspect we haven’t heard the last of James Frey."

On February 1, 2006, Random House published Frey’s note to the reader which was subsequently included in later editions of the book. In the note, Frey apologized for fabricating portions of his book and for having made himself seem "tougher and more daring and more aggressive than in reality I was, or I am." He added, "People cope with adversity in many different ways, ways that are deeply personal … My mistake … is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience." Frey admitted that he had literary reasons for his fabrications, as well: "I wanted the stories in the book to ebb and flow, to have dramatic arcs, to have the tension that all great stories require." He also said memoirists had a right to draw upon their memories, in addition to documents, in creating their written works.

On February 24, 2006, Frey’s publicist revealed that Penguin imprint Riverhead had dropped out of a two-book, seven-figure deal with Frey. Riverhead had previously published Frey’s bestselling 2005 book, My Friend Leonard.

On September 12, 2006, Frey and publisher Random House, Inc. reached a tentative legal settlement, whereby readers who felt that they had been defrauded by Frey’s A Million Little Pieces would be offered a refund. In order to receive the refund, customers had to submit a proof of purchase, pieces of the book itself (page 163 from the hardcover or the front cover from the paperback), and complete a sworn statement indicating that they had purchased the book under the assumption that it was a memoir.

On July 28, 2007, at a literary convention in Texas, Nan Talese blasted Oprah Winfrey for being "mean and self-serving", having a "holier-than-thou" attitude as well as having "fiercely bad manners" during Winfrey’s debate against Talese and James Frey on January 26, 2006. Talese said she and Frey had been led to believe the show was going to be a panel discussion on "Truth in America". Just before air time, both Talese and Frey were told the topic of the show had been changed to "The James Frey Controversy". According to Talese, at the end of the show, Oprah pulled Frey aside and said "I know it was rough, but it’s just business." Talese stated that Oprah needed to apologize for her behavior on the show. However Joyce Carol Oates said "This is an ethical issue which can be debated passionately and with convincing arguments on both sides. In the end, Oprah Winfrey had to defend her own ethical standards of truth on her television program, which was courageous of her". Talese was unapologetic about publishing Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and commented that the book had great value for anyone who must deal with a loved one who is an addict.

In September 2007, HarperCollins announced a new Frey novel, Bright Shiny Morning, to be published in the summer of 2008.

In May 2009, Vanity Fair reported that Oprah Winfrey had called James Frey and made a formal apology for blasting him on her show for this scandal, and she made a televised apology in 2011., Oprah.com, 17 May 2011. Retrieved May 2013.

Oprah Winfrey has conducted a two-part interview with James Frey, which aired on Monday and Tuesday, May 16 and 17, 2011.http://twitter.com/#!/Oprah

Following the events of Frey’s Oprah appearance, South Park created a parody of the events with their character Towelie, entitled "A Million Little Fibers".

Full Fathom Five

In 2009, Frey formed Full Fathom Five, a young adult novel publishing company that aimed to create highly commercial novels like Twilight. In November 2010, controversy arose when an MFA student who had been in talks to create content for the company released her extremely limiting contract online. The contract allows Frey license to remove an author from a project at any time, does not require him to give the author credit for their work, and only pays a standard advance of $250. A New York magazine article entitled "James Frey’s Fiction Factory" gave more details about the company, including information about the highly successful "Lorien Legacies" series, a collaboration between MFA student Jobie Hughes and Frey. The article details how Frey removed Hughes from the project, allegedly during a screaming match between the two authors. In the article, Frey is accused of abusing and using MFA students as cheap labor to churn out commercial young adult books.