I remember the hoopla "A Million Little Pieces" caused when it first came out. I also remember the hoopla it caused when it was shown to be mostly fictitious. I have never read the book, but remember thinking it was very amusing that people were up in arms over what, in my opinion, is nothing to get worked up about. In fact, I think that it would have been better if the lie had never been exposed.
First let me state my opinion of Fake Memoirs. I have no issue with them as long as they are advertised as such. It is an effective and compelling story-telling method. One good example that comes to mind is Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. It tells the story of a family sent away to force labor by Joseph Stalin from the perspective of the daughter who survived the ordeal. It was so well written that I had a hard time believing that it was not based off the author's family history. Obviously the events described in the book are real, but the characters are not. Okay, sorry for the side note. All that to say, that I am okay with fake memoirs as long as the author does not pass them off as true.
Now, in the case of James Frey, I definitely feel that what he did was wrong. It was a lie. Lying is wrong. Simple as that. However, everyone getting so worked up about it did not do any good. In fact, the article published by The Smoking Gun probably made James Frey more money than he made on initial book sales. I think they should have just left well enough alone. Eventually, he would have passed into distant memory and his book would be tucked away on the dusty shelves of some library (sorry, not all libraries have dusty shelves, but you get my point). And for the most part, that is what has happened but it has taken 8 years! Even still, the book is still read because it is controversial. So I feel that exposing James Frey as a liar gave him exactly what he wanted: more money and fame. He was wrong to do it, but he definitely profited from it. If the media could have left the story alone, we might not be talking about him anymore.
I know there will be people that disagree with my view on this. I can see how his passing his book of as true has made people skeptical of the real true stories out there. But in the end, he alone has to live with his lies and I think that keeping him out of the media will help him look himself in the mirror a little bit faster.
I think that the worst part of James Frey lying and making things up in his book, is Oprah telling the world to read this great non-fiction book. When Oprah endorses a book is like God endorses it. I feel people worshiped her and she made this man a star, so the truth needed to come out. This book needs to be called a work of fiction because a lot of it never happened.
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