A MILLION LITTLE LIES

Today I had a class presentation in my English spring school class. The class is called the Art of Writing Life. The presentation was on James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. In recent months, James Frey has come under attack for embellishing and even fabricating portions of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces. In the book, James Frey depicts his time in a rehabilitation clinic in order to fight his battle against drugs and alcohol. He explicitly describes to his readers his troubled past with drugs, alcohol, violence and even criminal activities. Frey faced numerous triumphs and tribulations in order to get sober. Frey went publicly promoting his book for two years before making it on Oprah Winfrey’s book club and than landing a guest spot on her show. James Frey’s fame suddenly escalated and his memoir became one of the top best sellers in the non-fiction category. He had overcome the disease as an alcoholic and a drug addict and he wanted to share his experience with thousands of people. Many readers were amazed that at such a young age, one man overcame so much pain, agony and distress. Nonetheless, many readers felt robbed when it was revealed by editors of an investigative website that James Frey’s memoir was completely fictionalized. From the portrayal of the characters to his life of crimes was all aggrandized. Frey’s clever and modern literary work was deliberately exaggerated in order to increase the scope of its dramatic appeal.

The ethical implications of Frey’s A Million Little Pieces are debauched and immoral. He is an author and he did not act in a professional behaviour when he lied about the details in his supposed memoir. James Frey made the deliberate act of deviating from the truth and was alleged of implication in several parts of his memoir. Which included, his criminal profession, jail conditions, and standing as an outlaw. Firstly, in a key part of the memoir, Frey claims he spent three months in an Ohio jail after hitting a police officer with his car and initializing a confrontation with police during a night of drinking and smoking crack. “I stayed in jail that night and I was arraigned the next morning on charges of Assault with a Deadly weapon, Assaulting an officer of the Law, Felony DUI, Disturbing the Peace, Resisting Arrest, Driving Without a License, Driving Without Insurance, Attempted Incitement of a riot, Possession of a Narcotic with Intent to Distribute and Felony Mayhem.” Nonetheless, he ran his car onto a curb, never hit a cop, no record of any police confrontation and no record of crack. Surprisingly, at the time of the arrest, there was no such thing as felony DUI on the books on Ohio. There was only a half a bottle of beer in the backseat of the car. Frey by no means specifies a precise spot but indicated this happened near where he attended college in Granville, Ohio. The Granville police department, found only one record regarding Frey. Frey claims that he was arrested 13 or 14 times, however, the police department could not find anything. In addition, the local sheriff told reporters that there is no record of Frey ever being locked up at the county jail.
Moreover, editors at the website The Smoking Gun said Frey told them he embellished some details in the book. Frey on Oprah stated that he accepted that there were embellishments in the book and that he has changed things. Frey stated that some parts of the book were revised, names were changed and identifying characteristics were altered. Frey stated that things were changed because they were too absurd and for plain reasons of effectiveness. For example, Frey on Oprah said that there is one example of a change made where he talks about a wound he had in the beginning. Frey said he said he cut his cheek. “He picks away the scabs. He opens my mouth. His finger fits though the hole. He gets a needle and some string and tells me to clench my fists and close my eyes.” In reality, Frey claims what happened is when he fell down, his lower teeth tore up his lip and penetrated it in two separate places. He received the stitches that he talked about receiving. However, in the book he said, he cut his cheek.
Frey claims that he was a raging young man who hated living in abundant, wealthy community. Frey states that he was an outcast who “didn’t relate to any of the Kids in the Town....At first I made an effort to fit in, but I couldn't pretend, and after a few weeks, I stopped trying. I am who I am and they could either like me or hate me. They hated me with a fucking vengeance.” Frey says he was bullied. In reverse, he also gained a bad reputation. Frey states “Teachers talked about me, Parents talked about me, the local Cops talked about me.” Frey says that he wanted to battle everyone, “I didn't care whether I won or lost, I just wanted to fight." Moreover, Frey said that he was one of those kids who parents said warned their children to stay away from.

Nevertheless, that message of Frey was mislaid on Paul Santarlas, who is a high school classmate of James Frey. Santarlas says that he grew up directly across the street from Frey on Valley View Drive. “I don't think he was ever in any more trouble than anyone else.” Moreover, Santarlas did not read A Million little Pieces before being interviewed. Santarlas recalls Frey as being a popular guy in school who was just like every normal teenager. Thirdly, in addition to these revelations, Frey also invented a role for himself in a devastating train calamity that cost the lives of two female high school students. In what may be his book’s most ridiculous escape from truth, Frey surprisingly manipulates facts of the event so he can fallaciously represent himself as the tragedy’s third victim. It’s a condescending and offensive scheme that has left one of the victims’ parents confused. that the parents of the victims said that Frey had nothing to do with the accident. Frey states in the book that “The car’s driver was unhurt and everyone felt sorry for him….I got taken down to the local Police Station and questioned. That was the way it worked there. Blame the fuck-up, feel sorry for the football Hero….I took a lot of punches for that bullshit, and every time I threw a punch back, and I threw one back every single time, I threw it back for her.” However, the Sanders family learned of A Million Little Pieces when a relative had heard about the book on Oprah. Furthermore, the mother of the victim Melissa Sanders, suspected the train accident described by Frey was the one that took her daughters life. The mother began to read the book and did not recognize any valid facts about her daughter. Moreover, the mother stated that Frey never had any connection with the accident.
Fourthly, the book is overflowing with questionable characters. Such as, the rich mafia connected Leonard and the heartbreaking crack whore Lilly, who was Frey’s girlfriend, who he met at the clinic. The plot is questionable because while they do not doubt Frey spent time in rehab, there really is not anyone left besides Frey himself to assure facts for many of the book’s eccentric stories. Frey says that the characters in the book either committed suicide, been murdered, died of AIDS, been sentenced to life in prison, gone missing, landed in an institution for the criminally insane, or fell off a fishing boat never to be seen again. Frey admits that he changed the way of how the character Lily killed herself. She committed suicide by cutting her wrists not hanging herself. Furthermore, Frey states that in the book when he left rehab, he claimed he left with his brother and friend. However, he only left with one person.
Furthermore, Frey states that he did not have take any medication to help him feel any pain during his trip to the dentist. In the book, Frey describes a skin pinching painful experience in which he had undergone at the dentist in order to get two root canals without any Novocain or anesthesia. Frey describes, “My face is on fire and the veins in my neck are exploding and my brain is white.” Oprah says that Frey’s publisher, Nan Talese, said on the show that Frey’s story of root-canal work did not make her second guess his work because she also had the dental surgery without benefit of anesthetic. Moreover, Frey said that he wrote the dentist part of the story from memory and he does not remember whether he took any medication. In essence, Frey explained that he lied about the dentist because the book had already been promoted to the public. The fact that portions of the book are fabricated does detract from its power because it is about the message that he was giving to people, people who were trying to rehabilitate themselves. Drug addicts and alcoholics, who look to this book for help found Frey’s strength, courage, will power and words of wisdom to draw a powerful significance to them. Even though I hate liars and I am still dissapointed in his lies, Frey's contemporary style of writing caught my attention. I swore so much in front of the class for the presentation. I LOVED IT! The proff even said motherfucker. To add a special touch, I wore a printed shirt for my presentation that said MY LIFE IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY...the proff loved it! EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ A MILLION LITTLE PIECES and form your own opinion.