A Million Little Pieces Revisited

A lot of people have been e-mailing me and leaving me messages about TheSmokingGun.com’s expose of James Frey. Essentially, they say he fabricated large portions of the book. I’m not sure which side of the fence I fall on as to who I believe, but I do want to share a couple things about it.

Its hard for me to put a lot of stock into what The Smoking Gun said for 2 reasons. One is the fact that The Smoking Gun is essentially a tabloid, and its hard to put a lot of stock in a tabloid. I mean, I know that the basis of what they are saying is true, but Frey said that he has made an effort to get his records expunged which would make sense of the fact that they weren’t able to find any police records. The other reason this is hard to believe is that Random House is a HUGE publishing house. I find it hard to believe that they would let something out that one of their authors has so ardently said is true without doing some fact checking themselves. Its just plain and simple.

Anyway, the main reason I don’t care much for these reports is that it doesn’t change the fact that the book made me feel the way it made me feel. If I hadn’t know (or thought) it was true, I probably would have felt the same way. And to be honest, throughout most of it, I wasn’t even thinking of the fact that it was (supposedly) true, and I still felt that way.

So there you have it. My thoughts on it. Take it as you will.