Bill's Notes

Two years ago today. I still miss you, buddy.

Seth Mnookin does a great job of getting to the bottom of James Frey's fraud.

Unfortunately, because A Million Little Pieces—one of the best-selling books about drug addiction ever written—has been trumpeted as an unflinching, real-life look into the world of a drug addict, it has helped to shape people's notions about drug abuse. Ironically, the very abundance of its clichés has likely helped make it a runaway best seller: People, after all, like having their suspicions confirmed. For nonaddicts, Pieces reinforces the still dangerously prevalent notion that it's easy to spot a drug addict or an alcoholic—they're the ones bleeding from holes in their cheeks or getting beaten down by the police or doing hard time with killers and rapists. For those struggling with their own substance-abuse issues, Pieces sends the message that unless you've reached the depths Frey describes, you don't have anything to worry about—you're a Fraud. And if you do have a problem, you don't need to necessarily get treatment or look to others for support; all you need to do is "hold on." In building up a false bogeyman—the American recovery movement's supposed reliance on the notion of "victimhood"—Frey has set himself up as the one, truth-telling savior. In fact, it seems clear that Frey would have been well-served by taking the kind of unflinchingly honest look at his own life that most recovery programs demand.

I read Frey's book a few years ago, right when it came out. It sounded a lot like the bullshit, anger-driven, self-righteous rants of someone in their first year of recovery. The know-it-all-ism. The posturing. The grandiosity. The self-will run riot, to use Program jargon.

Here's what I wrote at the time:

A Million Pieces, Part Three: If Papillon went to rehab instead of prison:

OK, done with the book. [NOTE: Spoilers ahead.] Some thoughts:

1. It's extraordinarily convenient that James Frey's stay at Hazelden occurred in a way that followed the complex plot arc of a contemporary novel, complete with all loose ends being tidied up. It's practically Victorian in its plotting toward the end. All it needed was a long-lost Uncle to leave him a couple of million dollars. Now, below two entries I mentioned that recovery stories have a natural plot arc. But, boy, Frey really pushes it even with that advantage. There is a love interest, even though that kind of intermingling is specifically prohibited at rehab. But your rules never apply to James. There is a big scene at the end of running at each other across the cafeteria, while the oppressive rehab workers try to pull them apart. You can hear the music swelling. There is a mysterious package that arrives for no bloody reason at all but to tie up a loose end. You're left scratching your head at the coincidences.

2. It's not ironic at all that James Frey insists he's going to stay sober on his own, without any help, after spending several months being attended to in a very fancy rehab. A friend puts him on a plane. Flight attendants take care of him. His parents pick up him at the airport and drive him to rehab. They pay for the rehab. Doctors stitich up his cheek and replace his four front teeth because he arrived at the airport bleeding and with his teeth knocked out. His brother leaves him a Tao Te Ching which he finds very helpful. A federal judge {by the way he moves the Federal Circuit to New Orleans — someone better tell the other judges] and a mafioso [both patients] directly intervene to get criminal charges reduced in Ohio, one to talk to authorities, the other to steal evidence. His minimum three-year sentence is reduced to three months. [By the way, he graciously agrees to serve this time, rather than fight it in court. You are such a stand-up guy, dude.] His brother picks him up from rehab and drives him away. Yup, James, you got sober completely on your own.

3. It's completely credible that people keep explaining how wonderful and unique he is to him, and how he's the only person ever to try to get sober his way. People are always confessing how wrong they are, or taking an inordinate interest in his well-being, or otherwise admiring him, or are endlessly accommodating him. Other people always cave in — James makes few compromises, except to show just how magnanimous he is. James always wins in the end. Near the close of the book, as soon as he's out of rehab, James Frey has his brother drive him to a bar. There, James spends $40 his brother just gave him on a pint glass of whiskey. Which he has the bartender dump out. His brother doesn't tell him, "Are you done making your fucking point with my $40?" His brother lovingly congratulates him.

Of course any memoir is going to require some adjustment of the facts — it's just the way it is. Maybe the editors in New York forced him to lay it on a little thick at the end. You gotta get published, and Frey hit the jackpot here. Getting published by Nan Talese with the full publicity machine cranked up is quite a coup. Maybe he is the luckiest guy in the world.

This book and literary publicity reminds me of Papillon by Henri Charriere. Charriere spent years in a penal colony in French Guiana, from which there was no escape, and kept trying to escape. Years later, he wrote a memoir that made him a literary sensation. Because Charriere had a butterfly tattoo on his chest, his nickname was Papillon, French for butterfly. The book is a great tale, but stretches credibility again and again until you marvel at the brazenness of the bullshit being slung. When he arrives at a British island, they add 18 inches of gunwale to his boat without being asked and as he sets out to sea, they salute him from the dock. That happened. At another point in Papillon, the authorities running the prison in which Charriere is incarcerated call him to a meeting so he can help them administer the prison better. "Only you can solve our problems, Papillon!" or something like that.

Now, this may sound contradictory. What I mean is Frey is trying to be honest, but though I believe he believes what he says, sometimes I just don't believe it went down the way he says. There's some unreliable narrator here. He constantly rejects people yet they seek him out. Some interactions with others are so blind that it reminds me of the prison administrators turning to Papillon. "James Frey, please help us reorganize our rehab! Only you have the answers!"

***

Now, to the good part. The entry below includes an outstanding message near the core of the memoir.

1. Achieving your goal involves making a decision, yes or no: Do you make decisions to further your goals, or not? It's a simple message, but it's one worth repeating.

2. Ruthless honesty is critical: The sooner you can clear any kind of dishonesty, including self-pity, whining and the like, the sooner you can move forward.

3. It helps to be non-judgmental. Frey makes friends and they save him. As one of my friends says, pretty much no matter what someone else has done, "It doesn't make him a bad person." "He killed three people." "Doesn't make him a bad person." Frey doesn't judge others, he deals with them as they are.

4. Don't take it personally. He's not insecure. Whatever happens involving others in the rehab, he doesn't worry about it.

Yesterday, I dropped by a bookstore and read chunks of, "My Friend Leonard," the equal to Million Little Pieces. Ugh. That's all. Ugh. It doesn't work at all when you realize Frey is full of shit. He's an embarrassment. But he gets to keep the money.

Pennsylvania's holding hearings about the leftist indoctrination state colleges indulge in. My graduate school, Temple University, has come under fire. And rightly so.

I was at Temple from 1990-93, and again in 95-96. What I saw was the emergence of the Baby Boomers squeezing out the Classic Liberal Old Guard. I was fortunate in that I was able to take classes from the Classic Liberals, but by 1993 almost all had been run out of town and the English department had become the Department of Critical Theory. But you know that story.

What's nice to know is that Temple's finally getting called on it.

1. Scandal! James Frey's memoir, A Million Pieces of Bullshit, is made up. I've had the "featured" review on Amazon for a couple of years now. If it took you two years to figure out the book was bullshit, I can't help you. Still, I thought the book worked as a novel, if you gave it constant absolution. And it wasn't all bad — it had its moments. It just wasn't true.

2. Last night, I did one of those rolling right turns through a stop sign. I hurried because I didn't want to wait for the car that was coming. Turned out I misjudged the distance, and the car ran right up my bumper. Then I remembered where I was: Just in front of the State Police barracks. The car tailgated me, I gunned it, and the cop — yes, cop — turned into the police barracks. Turned out he wanted to be back at home base more than giving some schmuck a ticket. Whew! Thank God.

3. [Entry, in which I said I was wrong about something, turned out to be wrong. Entry removed as per editorial policy.]

4. Total friggin' insomnia last night. Worse, I have a fellow insomniac as a house-guest. Except I occasionally sleep. He doesn't seem to sleep at all.

5. Bought a new TV at Wal-Mart. It was dirt cheap. An 27-inch flat-screen RCA. Not the greatest brand, I know, but it was big and cheap, which is what I wanted.

6. I loathe and despise deadlines. I'm ready to get a job as a truck driver.

7. That's all the news for now.

If you're looking for a religious, there's always this.