'Grey's' Isn't Going Anywhere
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Oprah defends James Frey on Larry King Live
by Joel Keller, posted Jan 11th 2006 10:31PM
Just finished watching Larry King
Live, who had the first interview with author James Frey since the controversy over the truthfulness (or
"truthiness," as Colbert would say) of some of the facts in his memoir A Million Little Pieces.
During the interview, Frey kept responding to Larry's queries over The Smoking Gun's exposé -- it revealed
that some of the book's details about his criminal past were highly exaggerated -- by saying that it was a very
small part of a huge book. People are not concentrating on the meat of the book, said Frey, which takes place in a
rehab clinic. Frey went on to explain that memoirs generally have embellishments, composite characters, and time
compressions, and that it's a subjective story about the author's life, so it's hard to judge it on the facts.(Embellishments are one thing. I write personal essays, and I know that recalling your personal recollections sometimes makes things come out differently than someone else's recollections. But what Frey did goes a bit beyond tweaking a fact or mis-remembering a detail. He made up a jail sentence out of whole cloth, among other things.)
Oprah Winfrey, who shot Frey's book to the top by recommending it for her book club and was the one person whose reaction every news outlet wanted, called into the show at the very end -- they extended the show for five minutes -- to give her view. While she was disappointed in the controversy, she said that she relies on the publisher to correctly label the books she reads. If they say it's a memoir and it has no disclaimers about embellishments and other story changes, Oprah has to take their word that everything in the book is true. She hopes that the brouhaha doesn't take away from the message of hope and recovery that the book gives its readers, though, and still supports Frey and his career.
So that's that. Oprah's still in Frey's corner. I'm sure he breathed a sigh of relief after her call, because if she had pulled her support, his career would have been sunk.
Overall, an fascinating hour, especially coming from the ol' softball pitcher Larry King. Definitely watch the replays if you get a chance. We'll put up links of the transcript and video when they're released.
(Here's Bob's initial take on The Smoking Gun's article on Frey)
(UPDATE: here's the transcript. Clips are on the CNN web site.)
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