Oprah confronts Frey about disputed
memoir
USAToday
January 26, 2006
CHICAGO (AP) — In a stunning switch from
dismissive to disgusted, Oprah Winfrey took on one of her chosen
authors, James Frey, accusing him on live television of lying about A
Million Little Pieces and letting down the many fans of his memoir of
addiction and recovery.
Frey got Oprah Winfrey's support
on Larry King; she wasn't quite so fawning on her show
Thursday.
CNN
"I feel duped," she said Thursday on her syndicated talk show. "But
more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."
Frey, who found himself booed in the same Chicago studio where he had
been embraced not long ago, acknowledged that he had lied.
A sometimes angry, sometimes tearful Winfrey asked Frey why he "felt
the need to lie." Audience members often groaned and gasped at Frey's
halting, stuttered admissions that certain facts and characters had
been "altered" but that the essence of his memoir was real.
"I don't think it is a novel," Frey said of his book, which had
initially been offered to publishers, and rejected by many, as fiction.
"I still think it's a memoir."
Thursday's broadcast, rare proof that the contents of a book can lead
to great tabloid TV, marked an abrupt reversal from the cozy chat two
weeks ago on Larry King Live, when Winfrey phoned in to support Frey
and label alleged fabrications as "much ado about nothing."
"I left the impression that the truth is not important," Winfrey said
Thursday of last week's call, saying that "e-mail after e-mail" from
supporters of the book had cast a "cloud" over her judgment.
On a segment that also featured the book's publisher, Nan A. Talese of
Doubleday, Frey was questioned about various parts of his book, from
the three-month jail sentence he now says he never served to undergoing
dental surgery without Novocain, a story he no longer clearly recalls.
Winfrey, whose apparent indifference to the memoir's accuracy led to
intense criticism, including angry e-mails on her website, subjected
Frey to a virtual page-by-page interrogation. No longer, as she told
King, was she saying that emotional truth mattered more than the facts.
"Mr. Bravado Tough Guy," she mockingly called the author whose book she
had enshrined last fall and whose reputation she had recently saved.
Talese and Doubleday were not spared. Winfrey noted that her staff had
been alerted to possible discrepancies in Frey's book, only to be
assured by the publisher. She lectured Talese on her responsibilities:
"I'm trusting you, the publisher, to categorize this book whether as
fiction or autobiographical or memoir."
Talese, an industry veteran whose many authors have included Ian
McEwan, George Plimpton and Thomas Cahill, told Winfrey that editors
who saw the book raised no questions and that A Million Pieces received
a legal vetting. She acknowledged that the book had not been
fact-checked, something many publishers say they have little time to do.
In a statement issued later Thursday, Doubleday, which initially had
called the allegations not worth looking into, said it had "sadly come
to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and
incidents embellished."
The publisher said an author's note was being prepared that will be
sent to booksellers to insert into current editions and that any future
printings would be delayed until the note is included in the actual
book. But no changes in the text are planned and the book will remain
classified as a memoir.
Winfrey's words also were harsher than her actions. She did not unleash
publishing's version of the death penalty: revoking her endorsement, a
devastating and unprecedented action. Only once before has she turned,
relatively mildly, on a book club pick: In 2001, she withdrew her
invitation for Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections, to appear
on her show after the novelist expressed ambivalence over her
endorsement.
Her current choice is Elie Wiesel's classic, Night, a memoir with a
concise, literary style that has led some to call it a novel.
Three years ago, Frey stepped up as publishing's latest and baddest bad
boy, with tattooed initials on his arm — "FTBSITTTD" — bearing a
defiant and unprintable message. Winfrey's selection made his book a
million seller and Frey a hero to many who believed his story was
theirs.
"In order to get through the experience of the addiction, I thought of
myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was, and it helped
me cope," Frey said Thursday on Winfrey's show. "And when I was writing
the book, instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I
clung to that image."
Frey's career will likely never recover, although so far he has not
suffered for sales. His book, a million seller thanks to Winfrey,
remained in the top 5 Thursday on Amazon.com. A second memoir, My
Friend Leonard, was in the top 20.
He currently has a two-book deal with Riverhead Books, an imprint of
Penguin Group USA, with a novel about contemporary Los Angeles due in
2007. The publisher did not have an immediate comment Thursday.
Beyond Frey, and his publishers, stories of suffering may themselves
take a fall. Frey's saga comes at a time when the work, and even the
identities, of such alleged hard-luck authors as J.T. Leroy and Nasdijj
have been questioned. St. Martin's Press recently added a disclaimer to
an upcoming book by Augusten Burroughs, another memoirist who has been
challenged.
"I think for a while, this will make people careful," said Ashbel
Green, a senior editor at Alfred A. Knopf.
"But this question of fact checking is a complicated one. At The New
Yorker and Time and Newsweek, you have experienced people who know
where to go and what's right and what's wrong. We don't. There's been a
traditional dependency on the author."
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