Entertainmentday

Does anyone remember James Frey? He was that “memoirist” who came out with the “story of his life,” which was titled A Million Little Pieces. The book was, of course, not true. During the promotion of his book, he managed to dupe not only the entire world, but Oprah. If he would have only fooled us, it would have been one thing. He fooled the Queen of television. Queen Oprah was not pleased.

Somehow, Frey has managed to come out with another book. This time he’s wisely marketing it as a novel. However, you can’t help but wonder how he can possibly recover from the memoir fiasco.

Apparently, he can’t.

His new novel, Bright Shiny Morning is getting shredded by critics. I think he deserves it. Honestly, does it even matter if Morning is any good or not? He deceived us all to sell a few books. I know that I won’t be contributing to the James Frey fund in this lifetime.

James Frey did do some good, though, for the literary world. He showed us how naïve we can be as a nation when we believe every word that trickles onto paper. People want to see the goodness in people, and that oftentimes causes us to wear blinders.

James Frey is certainly not the only “memoirist” to take liberties that should not be taken. Thankfully, now the public is more ready than ever to find these people out. He, along with others, has changed the ways that people view memoirs.

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