Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 10:40:40 AM

Login with username, password and session length

A Million Little Lies [artistic fraud]

Started by aaaaaaaaaargh!, October 02, 2008, 07:46:28 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
I'm aware that James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has been out for a few years now, but I've only just gotten round to reading it which is why I'm starting this thread now.  As with every other book I read, I tend to do a bit of reading around the book, usually by going to Wikipedia and looking at the associated links, to try and get a bit more of an understanding about what I'm reading.  The back cover of my book (it's the edition with the pretty white cover speckled with coloured dots, presumably to attempt to literally illustrate a million little pieces) categorises the book as being a memoir.

Reading the Wikipedia page for the book, I was particularly intrigued by the "controversy" section.  The book got picked up by Oprah Winfrey's book club and sales rocketed, making it the #1 Thesmokinggun did a rather large article called A Million Little Lies which attempted to fact-check and corroborate incidents reported in Frey's book.  The more looking they did, the more holes and emblishments they found.  Frey's problem seemed to be the fact that when questioned about something, he started to lie even more: about his supposed criminal record, being "wanted" in three states, the death of Lilly, etc, he just seemed to be caught in a spiral of lies until he had to finally admit that he wasn't entirely truthful.

The Artist acting fraudulently is something which has interested me for a while now.  Did Frey start to believe in his lies, or did he think that the hiring of lawyers would be enough to scare people away?  Why did the book come out as a memoir rather than a semi-autobiographical piece?  It's not as if the latter is a poor relation in the literary world or anything like that, some of the best stories I've read are semi-autobiographical (Junky, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, to name but a few).

Has anyone else read the book, or heard of this fraud?  I'd be interested to hear, if they have, or if people can tell any other stories of artistic fraud (except Milli Vanilli), I'm sure there must be tons of examples out there.


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

South Park did an episode about it. Although it was mostly so they could have Oprah's vagina and anus talking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Little_Fibers

ThickAndCreamy

It was all over the news a few years back and South Park even had a whole episode on it. It was meant to be a satire with Towelie as Frey but ended up being one of the worst episodes of South Park ever made, piss poor stuff.

It was also on The Daily Show and Colbert Report a few years back and I heard and read a bit about it too, Oprah made out he was like the devil almost and how he had lied to "America Fuck Yeah?*". I have nothing other to contribute but the knowledge of that though as I have only recently got into reading and my knowledge is hugely limited to a few Orwell books and a few political and historical books.

*[sic]

Yeah, just seemed to have been something which completely passed me by at the time.  I found the book extremely readable once I was able to get over Frey's writing style which I don't think will be to everyone's taste admittedly, but it is a book I would recommend as you can pick it up for cheap.

He seemed to be addicted to everything going, I dunno, maybe lying was sort of an addiction too.

ziggy starbucks

what's wrong with making stuff up? Most biographies would be desperately dull without the fibs.

if I wrote my memoirs, I would make 95% of it up

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The Coen Brothers got away with it in Fargo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_(film)#Fact_vs._fiction
Quote from: Joel CoenIf an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept.

Quote from: ziggy starbucks on October 02, 2008, 07:59:44 PM
what's wrong with making stuff up?

Well, I think in this case the story was miles away from what actually happened, absolutely miles away.  I think a fair few people's objection was that there was this guy who battled through addiction in an unconventional manner and whose story was a tower of strength to people who were struggling through the same sort of thing, only that most of his story never bloody well happened, not like the book tells it anyway.  It is an interesting story mind.

CaledonianGonzo


ziggy starbucks

isn't it the job of the autobiography to be self serving, and then for following biographies to strip away to bull to present the real person. Isn't it how the book world works: one book of lies spawns several books of truth?

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on October 02, 2008, 08:04:17 PM
The Coen Brothers got away with it in Fargo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_(film)#Fact_vs._fiction

Although it was inspired by the famous 1986 woodchipper murder ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helle_Crafts ) in St. Louis which, incidentally, was committed by the father of one of my ex-wife's close friends.

LC

The book is heartbreaking and inspirational. I don't care if you class it as memoir, fiction, non-fiction, whatever. It's superb.

LC

Quote from: aaaaaaaaaargh! on October 02, 2008, 08:09:24 PM
Well, I think in this case the story was miles away from what actually happened, absolutely miles away.  I think a fair few people's objection was that there was this guy who battled through addiction in an unconventional manner and whose story was a tower of strength to people who were struggling through the same sort of thing, only that most of his story never bloody well happened, not like the book tells it anyway.  It is an interesting story mind.

I think you're being unnecessarily harsh on it. If it stands as an inspirational story for those in need of help, then good. It doesn't matter. Plus, he didn't exaggerate or lie about everything, did he?

Quote from: LC on October 02, 2008, 09:06:53 PM
I think you're being unnecessarily harsh on it. If it stands as an inspirational story for those in need of help, then good. It doesn't matter. Plus, he didn't exaggerate or lie about everything, did he?

He lied about the central part of the story, hugely exaggerated it, and it was pretty much the central part of the plot (TSG uses the term "maypole" which is a good description).  The embellishment of the truth goes far beyond anything you'd expect to see in an autobiography.

I think it's good if it does inspire people, my point was more that vulnerable people will have read his book and taken it at face value, seen that he got through an awful lot of shit, but then found out that hardly any of it happened as described, if at all in some cases, I don't think that's an unfair observation.

Hank_Kingsley

This cunt:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Lerner.

He wrote a fairly engaging prison memoir (I love stuff to do with prison) which although a little cheesy, and clearly written with a film adaptation in mind, I still enjoyed greatly. Then I find out that the psychotic ogre he killed in self-defence was actually a little tiny man who was tortured and horribly killed!

Depressing.

The Widow of Brid

The Anthony Godby Johnson case always jumps out to me. Partly because it's so absolutely OTT and fucked up as to be utterly absurd. Partly because I'm a big fan of the novel, The Night Listener, which seems to be pretty much Armistead Maupin working through his reactions to being sucked into it.

Beck

The film Shattered Glass was on BBC1 or 2 last week, based on a true story I'd not previously heard of: '90s journalist Stephen Glass fabricates events and people in basically all of his articles, attempts ineptly to cover it up, and then is fired, as you'd hope. And much as I generally dig true life fictionalisations (that the right phrase?) when done well, this was really scraping the barrel in terms of picking an interesting real-life thing to do a film about. It was dull because the made-up stories Glass came up with were dull, his cover-ups were high-scool level, pretty much, and he's rumbled when somebody simply decides to do a couple of Google searches. I don't know many details about the real-life rumbling, but the film makes the newspaper industry seem insanely forgiving and generous - the antithesis of 'cut-throat' - as his boss gives him a billion second chances, just because Glass throws a few embarrassing tantrums.

As it ends the film's got the balls to suggest we actually feel sympathy for this guy, this fame-hungry hack, and I got a little depressed when one of those 'what happened to who' freeze-frames informs you that he got a book deal out of the whole thing, and no doubt profited from the film too. Ah well.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Well the joke's on him. He was played by Hayden Christiansen.

amputeeporn

I heard once from a teacher (maybe speculating) that Frey had tried to get published before, but at the time the market was just dedicated to memoirs - like the Tragic Lives section in every WHSmith now. So he just wrote around it.

I really REALLY think, good for him.

amputeeporn

Ah. Actually a good example - belle du jour. The supposed (and still active) blog of a female escort, which is assumed by everyone to be the work of two or three journalists. Now made into a TV series, starring Billie Piper.

In a time when people are seemingly so desperate for realism, and when most 'real' memoirs are largely fictional, it simply comes down to what is most entertaining.It's not sustainable as a niche or rewarding artistically really, but interesting none-the-less.

I'd have loved it if, during the hight of the celeb-tell-all boom, Morris had built up some fake c-lister, then released a ridiculous autobiography. Perhaps with an "unauthorised biography" giving the truth behind the outlandish lies, etc.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Chuck Barris' "unauthorised autobiography" Confession of A Dangerous Mind probably fits into this category, even though nobody has ever really believed Barris' outlandish claims, and it's obvious that he wrote it as a joke (I love the fact that his second autobiography makes absolutely no reference to his time as a hitman for the CIA).

wherearethespoons

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on October 02, 2008, 08:44:25 PM
Although it was inspired by the famous 1986 woodchipper murder ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helle_Crafts ) in St. Louis which, incidentally, was committed by the father of one of my ex-wife's close friends.

And, they didn't actually get away with it did they?  Somebody died trying to find the money. (EDIT: Actually, that probably just proves they did get away with it, but I didn't mean it like that.)

They were pretty upfront about it when questioned whether it was a true story or not.

Quote from: amputeeporn on October 03, 2008, 04:55:02 AM
Ah. Actually a good example - belle du jour.

Hmmm, I don't think you were intending that to come out quite as condescending as that, well, I hope you weren't anyway.

I'm not disputing that people can embelish memoirs or anything like that, and I'm not saying that people can't or shouldn't do it or that it ultimately diminishes the quality and truthfulness of the work.  What I am saying is that Frey's alternate reality went far beyond what you might call embelishment, miles beyond it.  The central piece of the story went far beyond the truth as to be completely unrecognisable from what actually happened, as did a lot of other things within the story.  That is not what you'd expect from an autobiography, obviously an autobiography is will be self-serving, that's human nature after all, but this goes way beyond that.

I'm not denying that it's a good book or anything like that, just amused to see that my version is categorised as a memoir when it seems to be anything but, particularly as the US publishers ended up recategorising the book and offering refunds to anyone who believed they'd been mislead.

Quote from: confettiinmyhair on October 02, 2008, 07:50:22 PM
You may be interested in these essays aaaaaaaaaargh!
http://www.popmatters.com/books/features/060203-freyleroy.shtml

Thanks for the link, will read through when I'm pretending to do work this afternoon.

yesitis

you should check out orson welles's f for fake http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072962/ if you haven't already . one of my favourite films. don't read too much about it though or it'll be ruined.

The Widow of Brid

Quote from: wherearethespoons on October 03, 2008, 09:35:51 AM
And, they didn't actually get away with it did they?  Somebody died trying to find the money. (EDIT: Actually, that probably just proves they did get away with it, but I didn't mean it like that.)


Argh. Balls. I can't remember the woman's name, and thus can't send you to places that'll explain it better, but if you're thinking of the Asian woman who died then it turns out that there was a lot of stuff going on there, and very little to suggest that it actually was a case of 'thought Fargo was true, froze.'
The real story is absolutey fascinating and bizarre, including stuff that suggests it could even have been something amounting almost to a combination suicide/performance art thing.

Shit. I really wish I could remember her name.

Quote from: The Widow of Brid on October 03, 2008, 01:32:09 PM

Argh. Balls. I can't remember the woman's name, and thus can't send you to places that'll explain it better, but if you're thinking of the Asian woman who died then it turns out that there was a lot of stuff going on there, and very little to suggest that it actually was a case of 'thought Fargo was true, froze.'
The real story is absolutey fascinating and bizarre, including stuff that suggests it could even have been something amounting almost to a combination suicide/performance art thing.

Shit. I really wish I could remember her name.

Here's a fuller account:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2003/jun/06/artsfeatures1

jennifer

Running with Scissors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_with_Scissors_(memoir)

Didn't even realise it was a memoir til I was halfway through and thought 'oh he's got the same name as the author'


*reasonably-sized bump, doesn't care if no one else replies*

Thought I'd bump this thread as I've just read My Friend Leonard.  I found it a fair bit more interesting than A Million Little Pieces, I don't know precisely whether that's because Frey's writing style has calmed down a bit - there are fewer random capitalisations of certain nouns - or because I found Leonard a more interesting character than Frey.

There are two genuinely tragic parts in the book which really moved me, particularly one of them which has an unexpected twist.  It's been interesting reading back this thread, I should stress that I really enjoyed A Million Little Pieces - you may not have gotten that impression from reading my posts above!

Interestingly (to me), there is a disclaimer in My Friend Leonard which isn't present in my edition of A Million Little Pieces, presumably due to the controversy in the latter which states:

"To call this book pure non-fiction would be inaccurate.  It is a combination of fact and fiction, real and imagined events."

If you go into an HMV or somewhere like that you can pick up both books for a total of 8 quid, well worth it.