Tainted Memories
I count myself as one who was not surprised to hear that the author of the memoir A Million Little Pieces, James Frey, fabricated or embellished large portions of the text. As a New York Times piece proclaimed, the incident is nothing more than a continuation of the blurring of the line between reality and fiction. Oprah Winfrey, who chose the book for her book club, has even chimed in to state that the message is what is important regardless of how it's ultimately delivered, or something along those lines.

The ramifications of this are obvious to anyone who has a vested interest in keeping the separation of fact and fiction plain for everyone to see. In a previous post, I wrote about the possibility that our news is creating reality as well as vice versa. In the post I discussed the New York Times' seemingly obvious attempts to create a mood in the White House. Are they really nervous, on edge, etc. about any number of things, or is that how the Times wants to perceive it as being? I don't know, but if true it seems to speak to a sense of hypocrisy on their part to blast Frey for his embellishments.

I don't know how much he manufactured. Really, I don't care all that much because these types of books do not interest me in the least, but the industry for them is increasing substantially. I find it hard to believe that any of them are spot-on in their accuracy. It just seems like the premises for a lot of these books are works of fiction spun around a few facts interspersed throughout. As I said about dream recollections that seem flawless in narrative, I just think that writers know that a fractured narrative isn't likely to sell very well, so they fill in the gaps with all sorts of fluff that acts as an epoxy to hold the whole thing together.

The impression I get is that Frey essentially lied about large portions of his life in order to write this book. That, I think, is wrong, and it's equally wrong to label the book as a memoir when it should be labeled, if not just plain fiction, then at least a memoir with embellishments.