You lie like a rug
I watched a little of James Frey's appearance last night on Larry King Live but quickly changed the channel to watch the last episode of Country Boys on Frontline mainly because I was so, pardon my use of overused naughty words, fucking pissed. Frey chose to spin what he did as artisitic license.
Well, Frey LIED. A LOT. He didn't take artistic license. He instead decided NOT to tell the truth on some pretty serious accounts but then sell it as such. And then I turn on the tv this morning and find out Oprah is fucking backing him up. Oooooo, it makes me so mad I could spit. I went to school for journalism. It's not quite the same field as memoir-writing, where, admittedly, you can certainly embellish stuff here and there and you are recreating things from your mind rather than out of whole cloth but still you can't just fucking make shit up.
Frey is a lying asshole. And nobody is calling him on it, save TSG. I am embarrassed for the journalistic profession.
Labels: boob tube
posted by McPolack at 11:28 AM
6 Comments:
Mary Karr slams him in this Publisher's Weekly article:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6298902.html?display=breaking
Go Mary! I'm still debating the distinction between Memoir/Autiobiography/Non-Fiction/Creative Non-Fiction. As the NY Observer has noted, however, Million Little Pieces may just be the Enron of the Memoir genre.
1:57 PM, January 12, 2006
from powell's book's blog:
EDITOR: I'm not wild about Frey's writing, but I sure like his thinking. As I sit here at my desk, typing this latest blog posting of Book News, it slowly occurs to me that I'm Elvis. (Hey, only 4.35% of that sentence was untruthful, which is less than five percent, and that's a pretty good ratio.) Frey has not yet announced his candidacy for president of the United States — but with logic like this, he's a shoo-in.
2:56 PM, January 12, 2006
you know, i was just talking to the wife about the country boys show at lunch. man... what a sad state of affairs...
did you see the show last year (?) about the family farm struggling to make it? talk about depressing...
4:55 PM, January 13, 2006
Damnit Oprah! Well, I guess she needs to save face.
6:10 PM, January 13, 2006
Even putting aside this Frey issue for a mo, I've lost all affection for Ms. Winfrey. I seem to have a lifetime subscription to her magazine; it arrived today. Ugh! Putting yourself on the cover of every issue for five years? Get over yourself!
6:13 PM, January 13, 2006
k, and anonymous, thank you for reaffirming some of my faith. There was a nice snarky op-ed piece in the NYT today as well.
bitter joe, "Country Boys" certainly was depressing -- did you visit the web site? It had some interesting stuff to say about poverty in Appalachia and why it's so entrenched. I saw the "Farmer's Wife piece as well and liked it.
Teri, I am so with you on Oprah sucking the big one. I think her head got too big. Way too big.
6:33 PM, January 13, 2006
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